Important to me
“The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it.” - Bahá’u’lláh
As if to prove the point, this artifact from Purdue University’s yearbook has survived for a hundred years. My grandparents did not.
The other day, I passed by a bus shelter on Monroe Drive in midtown Atlanta where a woman was determinedly sweeping the sidewalk with a broom.
She seemed to be an unhoused person, judging by the large amount of stuff stacked on the bench within the shelter. This was her home, her turf, and she was defending it from the onslaught of grime and debris from the road.
Even though I’m in a more privileged position in life, I can relate to this woman’s desire to do the tidying that she could. I understand her instinct to maintain life’s little routines in the face of chaos.
Over the course of the past couple of years, most notably during the lockdown period of the pandemic, the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I have often felt a bit like that woman futilely sweeping a city sidewalk during rush hour. What does it matter if I reply to this email or submit that form or complete this proposal? What does any of it matter?
It brings to mind the immortal Wile E. Coyote feebly holding up a parasol to protect him from a shower of increasingly large boulders.
And yet, giving up is not a more attractive option. I don’t want to believe that the little things I’m doing to maintain order are pointless. If I let go of those things, what do I have?
I could address that deep, existential question, but I prefer not to stare into the abyss too often. Instead, I deliberately create the illusion of control while acknowledging that it is an illusion.
I have decided that it is enough that the things I do are important to me. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether they are objectively important. My life is small in the scheme of things anyway, and yet it has value to me and to a handful of others. That is enough to justify being alive and trying to stay that way.
Seeing the suffering of those around me brings up a deep sadness. I wish I could do more to help. But I am just one person, over here trying to teach my students about totalitarianism, fractions, and respecting each other’s differences. It sounds ridiculous to say that I’m already doing everything I can. I don’t know if I am. But who’s to say? There’s no judge who can rule on it.
I’ve been surprised to learn that, as an adult, I don’t subscribe to fatalism, nihilism, or hedonism. As a teenager, those seemed like much sexier ways of being than where I actually ended up: someone with a deep desire for meaning and goodness. Even if I might die today, I believe that it still matters if I put my dishes in the dishwasher and do my daily writing. It still matters if I let someone go ahead of me in traffic. Regardless of how trivial these things may seem, they are important to me.
I’ve seen so many people get discouraged from doing the things they’d like to do because they don’t seem big enough. It’s happened to me, too — I let someone talk me out of an idea because it was modest and they thought that it would just be a dead end.
No longer. The world is hard enough. If something brings me joy, I don’t need more reason than that. If something sounds interesting, I can go ahead and try it. If I like what I’m doing, I don’t need to challenge myself to do something else.
Of course whatever I have planned, from jigsaw puzzles to jazz piano, is a waste of time. Pretty much everything is. Therefore, I might as well do what I feel called to do. It might give me a sense of safety and order in a time when nothing is safe or orderly. It might allow me to feel hopeful and serene when both hope and serenity are in short supply. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t matter. It makes no difference that cold, brutal reality remains indifferent. If it’s important to me, I’m going to do it.
