At birth, we humans learn to breathe air, to eat and digest food, to move our limbs in space. Simply existing in this very different environment with its bright lights and loud noises is a gargantuan task for one so small.
This challenge demands of us a certain self-centeredness as we figure out who we are. But immediately we become aware of the people outside with us whose voices we heard from the inside. And so for these first months of life we’re contented in our family’s cocoon. Our world is very small.
Then one day our newly improved vision enables us to catch sight of a mewing cat as she slithers across the floor. And that’s it; we’re hooked on watching and listening to everything.
As five-month old babies, we are fulltime “noticers” fascinated by new sights and sounds. And so it goes as we humans become aware of our expanding worlds.
Elementary school curricula are built on this premise, beginning with a study of the community, then the state, then the nation, the earth and the universe as we progress through the grades. Education is designed to lead us out of our egocentrism into becoming citizens of the world
During adolescence, this growing awareness often leads us to feel compassion for others and to recognize our own limited existence. It’s the work of adulthood to grow out of seeing ourselves as the center of all things.
At some point in middle age, we become so very aware of our miniscule role in the history of the earth that we may reflect the words of physicist Stephen Hawking who suggested, “We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star.”
This full knowledge of the earth’s size and multitude of civilizations may overwhelm us. We may see the world as too massive to hold and too broken to fix. We may lose hope that our own life really matters much at all.
And then one day something magical happens. We middle-aged people become grandparents. And as we gaze in wonder at this tiny creature who’s turned our lives upside down, we realize again that the world is rather small, after all.
