It's a Wonderful Life

A lot of people have read this thinking that it was an exercise in self-loathing or a cry for help of sorts. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was purely an existential question based in the thinking that at the core, humanity hasn't changed that much through the course of our history. New titles, different roles is all. Anyway, thanks for the support everyone, but I'm fine, honest :-)

You know how in that movie, George Bailey finds out just what the world would be like if he'd never existed? The moral of the story is supposed to be how significant your own minor contributions have been to the tapestry of your life, but I was just thinking...

In the grand scheme of things, the unremarkable of us (that is to say, pretty much everyone but a remarkable few) don't really have lasting effects on the world as a whole. Rather, our greatest effects, if we have any at all, are usually on those we care about, those to whom we are closest.

Given this reality, is this idea that we are somehow integral to "the world" in our own small way, really just a egocentric fantasy? How different would the world really be if one of us never existed? Wouldn't it be more honest to say that the tiny part of the world about which we care the most would be different? Isn't it a bit presumptuous to think that every one of us is integral to the balance of society?

Humanity hasn't changed much in the last few thousand years. Sometimes, I wonder if any of us really matter at all.