I can remember seeing a puzzle on the first day of Grammar class. On the whiteboard I saw the phrase “that that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is”. The challenge was to put in all the proper capitalizations and punctuations without adding words to reveal a grammatically correct phrase. The solution was “That, that is, is. That, that is not, is not. Is not that it? It is.” I was floored. I wanted so badly for that quote to have meaning, for it to be profound. But, to no avail, I only could make it out to be a benign challenge made out by what I’d guess to be one bored English teacher.

I’m always searching for the meaning of it all, and maybe you are too. For me, it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to just “go with it”. How anyone feels comfortable is lost on me. How can you feel great knowing it can all end at any time? Every exam I’ve ever studied for, every lesson I’ve ever learned, every taste or smell or sound I’ve ever experienced, stripped away from me without rhyme or reason. We can die right now! All that you were, all that you are, all that you could’ve been is capable of flicking off like a flashlight never to return. How can you be watching Jeopardy right now?!? How can you not feel so small?

I sometimes feel small. Feeling small makes me feel like I don’t have control. Like I’m the subject of something else’s design or intent, to be manipulated as the great winds or waves wish. Want to know some of the things that can make me feel small? It’s not women in high heels. It’s knowing that if you broke up all of measurable time into a calendar year, with the Big Bang on January 1st. A month would represent a more than a billion years, and the time that man existed would only be of the last seconds of the last minute of December 31st. It’s knowing that there are 7.5 billion people on Earth now, and that number doesn’t even scratch the surface of big. A billion has 9 zeroes, and that number is mind blowing to us. What about how many atoms in the universe? That has around 80 zeroes. It’s impossible for you brain to even picture how big of a number 80 zeroes is. I grapple with it every day. I grapple with an even bigger number than atoms in the universe - Shannon’s number. The approximate number of legal (not logical) moves that can be made in a game of chess. That number, has 120 zeroes. When I see those zeroes, it’s hard not to feel like one myself.

I see myself as small and insignificant at times, because I separate myself. I differentiate. I think "I'm just one person of billions, on just one planet of just one solar system in one of the gigantic amount of galaxies".

And that can make you think of the situation as pointless. When I think I’m only a fraction of a fraction of a millimeter, where the universe is a full yard stick, what choice do I have but to conclude that I hold little value.

But that's neglecting the real logic of it all. Sure, it makes communicating way easier to separate ourselves from the trees, the animals, the mountains, or the stars, but we aren't. You and I are all connected. You're as much of the universe as a rock, a planet, a whale, or a bacteria. It's one system. You're also not simply the product of that system, you're the activating reagents. You're the chemical reactions combining to change this universe. There's isn't a big or small, there just is an "is", and you're the "is". You can't get bigger or more important than you are, because you are all that there can be, has been, or will ever be.

This honestly, blew my mind. This is truly something really amazing and interesting. To that one english teacher, he is, genuinely, amazing. On the other hand of things, this should probably go into discussion (what im about to say), but anyways, i completely agree. Things like popularity, money, hierarchy, government, are really, just, nothing, and by that i mean, it's all relative, everything is to our perspective. We see government and things as "bigger" and "more powerful", but are they really? It's a human concept, keyword there is human, even if you have "more power" over another human do you really? All your doing is telling another what to do, or following some simple words on paper, or rather words from other humans. We don't have to follow them but we choose to, making them seem as they are in power. All that is, is, simply stated as you did, you can't get bigger or more important than you are, you are a human, a tiny spec in a infinitely growing universe of stars, planets, and atoms. In reality, we are dust. We are nothing but a tiny dot, a microscopic dot, that is ever growing smaller every second of our lives until we eventually die. But even then are we gone? our memories still last for years, maybe even decades, or eternity. All in all Bodhisattva, this is true art.

Thanks space, yeah I'd love to talk about it more. This theme and whether or not love and hate are opposites are two thoughts I want to explore and write more about. Hopefully I can get more critiques on this work, I don't even feel comfortable posting it to friends yet without more feedback

Writing like this is hard to give critique on. Any input on the message would be detracting from what it is, which is just your internal monologue typed out quite poetically.

So I guess the only thing which we can critique is the structure and literary style - in my opinion (which hasn't been educated on this type of thing at all) it gets the reader thinking which is obviously what you were going for. It's very satisfying to read something we all think about when it's written in a way it would be quite hard for us to articulate. So well done for getting us thinking!

In terms of the message, well, I'm a physicist and this existential crisis you've written about is exactly what drew me to study Physics, so it's always nice to hear someone else is thinking the same things.

Keep on writing, I look forward to seeing whatever you come up with next :)

For me it was mind boggleing when i found out that there are more galaxies then there are grains of sand on earth. Pretty spectacular.

Imo there are 2 ways or seeing the world. Micro vision, where you put yourself in the center and macro vision, where u are a part of all there is.

Anyway, i like the writing and subject. I'd say it's pretty good. Especially the english professor part. That is what kept me going through the article. Gj