Cosmic Insignificance

At the Toastmasters club meeting, one of the speakers, Vering, shared the news of his recent diabetes diagnosis. His speech was beautifully titled, “A teardrop is the tiniest ocean.”

It was incredibly commendable how he managed to share such a sad, personal story while weaving in educational messages, all without becoming overly emotional. Honestly, if I had to give that speech, I would have cried. As I listened, I realized he was trying to lift his own burden while simultaneously teaching the audience a healthy perspective on facing hardship. He has such goodwill, though I felt he might need to be a bit more grounded. His narrative zoomed out from the scope of his own life to a massive, cosmic scale.

My immediate emotional reaction was worry. I felt for him, so after the meeting ended, I made a point to walk up and talk to him. I wanted to encourage him, to tell him that despite this new burden, he is going to live a great life and is loved by the people around him. I urged him to live in the moment rather than worrying too much about the future. Doing that reminded me of Jose, and how his encouraging words planted themselves in my mind when we first met. Sometimes, people just need to hear that they are supported.

Later, I was talking through the experience with my friend Paul, trying to connect the dots of what Vering was expressing. It reminded me exactly of the mindset I read about in the Four Thousand Weeks book—specifically the concept of "grandiosity" and what is commonly called "cosmic insignificance therapy." It’s a psychological tool used to relieve the pressure of life.

I looked back at my notes from the book, and this quote perfectly captured the moment: “On a cosmic timescale, what you do with your life matters almost nothing — and that is a relief, not a despair, because it lifts the impossible burden of grandiose standards and frees you to find meaning at a modest, human scale.”

The tricky part of this concept is avoiding the trap of depressed nihilism. It’s not about nothing mattering; it’s about finding the middle ground between nihilism and grandiosity. It’s about freeing yourself to find meaning on a human scale and learning to be genuinely grateful for the "mediocre" human activities—like simply breathing.

Paul brought his own perspective to it, reminding me of the importance of what grounds us. It was a good reminder that while we can look at the cosmos to relieve our worldly pressures, we still have to find our anchor here, in the present moment, loving the people around us.