The Refuge of Insignificance

Many years ago, a colleague was blasting New York City. I was, at the time, living and working in a much smaller city but New York is always dear to me. Still, he rattled off some very valid criticism before finally summarizing it all with "It makes me feel so insignificant."

I remember thinking "But you are."

This is not a criticism of him at all, actually, but of course I didn't articulate any of this to him. I nodded to end the conversation but it's always stuck with me that we all tend to cling to a deep need for significance. And while we should most certainly be significant to our loved ones - and even our liked ones - why do we need more significance than that?

The colleague was certainly not alone in his sentiments and I do understand what he meant. It's easy to feel lost in huge cities where millions of people are streaming around us, just trying to live their lives. But I think that's the difference: being one of millions doesn't make us lost. It makes us similar to them all.

In 2019, I found huge relief in insignificance. I certainly cherished friends and family checking in and helping me through some terrible days but at a certain point - after Klaus died, actually - I was sick to death of talking. I wanted silence, I wanted an emotional break. I wanted to be insignificant.

I've written how travel helps me work through things on here before, and this is one of the reasons why. When I went to Europe for November 2019, it wasn't to treat myself to a glamorous holiday - quite the opposite. It provided refuge from grief, if even for a little while. I was able to wander for hours and hours without having to talk about how I felt. It was even more of a blessing when I went to non-English or French speaking countries because I quite literally did not possess the vocabulary to talk about my feelings. I could melt into the crowd of strangers, many of whom were probably going through just as much as I was. I wasn't any more or less significant than any one of them and my god, what a relief that was.

The idea of significance requires balance, of course. But in times of deep or compounded grief, relinquishing our need to be significant can also be a way to understand what little control we have over life. It's a way of letting go and letting be, and it can help us get through that proverbial one day at a time.