There are over seven billion people living on Earth, and I am just one person. I did some math and realized that one person makes up less than 0.0000000143 (one hundred forty-three ten billionths) of a percent of the entire population. One percent of 7 billion is 70 million. That’s 70 million people with names, feelings, personalities, beliefs, moms, dads, and problems. If they all just died, then the world would’ve only just lost one percent of its entire population. I don’t know more than a handful of people. Really just looking at the numbers you can see that a life isn’t worth much. What’s it matter if ONE person dies? There are still billions of phantoms out there living lives we’ll never know anything about. Suppose 1000 people care about me. Even then, 99.999% people still won’t know about my death whenever it happens or care what I did in life. It’s all insignificant… Even the lives of famous people are nothing special. In a hundred years, 99.999% people won’t even think of them.
Why does anything matter…?
6 comments
Numbers like that are bound to scare the shit out of you.
There may be 6,999,999,999+ people out there who live just like you, breathe just like you, eat, shit and fuck just like you.
But no one out there feels what you do.
Thinks the thoughts you do.
Your mind and everything it is will live and die with you.
There are no cheat codes to the game of life, but I’d suggest you do not pass Go and you do not collect $200…
Numbers aren’t the only thing to be considered though.
Even if there’s so many people out there and they’re a tiny tiny part of a massive bunch, one person might make a huge difference, in your personal life and maybe in others’ or for a group or so.
Why would you even need or want 1,000 people to care about you? 1,000 is a lot of people to interact with, sounds like a massive trouble to me.
One single person who would care deeply matters much more in my eyes.
But as i said numbers aren’t the only thing to consider.
The type of people you run into, the way they treat you, the things they might (or might not) do for you, the things you might learn from them, and all these sort of things and more are also a part of everything.
And ofcourse the things that you do for them, in cases where you can, also count.
You may not be able to know every single person out there in full detail, but you may run into a few in your life, and you may also make a part of their day (or life, if you get close i guess) brighter.
If that happens, and in addition i’m sure you got close friends and family who do care right now, they would really care and be pretty sad when you die.
Totally agree that our lives are worthless. But you know what’s not? Our actions. Each action affects others, no matter how insignificant.
Imagine if you went back in time 50 years and change one traffic light from green to red. The consequences of tampering with that one trivial event would be enormous. Someone might be late for an interview, lose the job and instead find another job where they work for 30 years until they eventually invent a new stapler that inspires someone else to invent some medical device which saves the life of a woman who will later give birth to the new president of the US who will approve the budget for a moon landing which will accidentally bring back a weird space virus that will wipe out all of humanity. So yeah, there’s hope yet haha…
its a mind fuck eh. we really mean nothing in scope of things. yet we are individualss
It matters because of the EGO.
Badly the ego is needed for survival and conpetition. (unless you are Buda Guru or something like that)
hahahaha! In a hundred years every single one of those 7 billion people alive right this minute will be dead. Unless a few live past 100, and not too many people are living that long these days.
Personally, you are right. Nothing matters. And then, at the same time, everything matters.
Did you know that the United States murders 35 billion animals annually in our slaughterhouses? It’s true! Whoa, that’s over 6 times the total global human population! That’s a lot of killing, a lot of suffering.
Anyone who has ever owned a dog or a cat knows that each is a unique individual, with a unique personality. Cows, pigs, goats, horses, chickens, etc., are no different. I have always said that every living being, be they human or otherwise, is unique and therefore, special. Even when ONE dies, it lessens the world that much more.
True, large numbers are hard to fathom. And I too feel the hopelessness and futility of existence. I wouldn’t be here on this site if I didn’t feel the same way that you do.
For years and years I tried to change the world for the better; be the peace you want to see in the world, as Gandhi would say. But it’s overwhelming. It’s like you said, I’m only one guy; I can’t make a difference. I don’t want to give up… but I can’t keep living this way. I am exhausted.
I know why those Buddhist monks burned themselves alive in Vietnam! I feel the same way!
Thanks for the post, Ryder. Deep! Very deep!
Your pal,
Jack