YOU ARE EVERYTHING AND NOTHING

A few years ago, I stopped into the small supermarket around the corner to buy some butter. It was the only item I needed— not worth a trek up to 14th street to Trader Joe's.

I waited in line while a woman, somewhat angry, argued at the front with the cashier. (He was also the owner.) There was some price dispute, or item dispute, or... I don't know. It went on a while, and the line steadily grew as I waited.

Suddenly I began to feel ... irritated. Not so much with waiting, because I had absolutely nowhere to be, but just irritated by the energy of this woman, and the owner, and the people in the line... Irritations continued to grow as the woman then yelled loudly and walked away from the register to go find something.

Finally I, overcome by all of the tension, aggressively put my butter into the drink case beside me and walked out of the store.

What happened? Was there a force that acted upon me that I didn't reconcile? What was the stimulus that caused the woman's outburst at the register? And what about my outburst and inability to self-regulate? Did that affect someone else? My guess is it did. My guess is the person who had to "put the butter back" felt the energy of my inability to regulate. My guess is I rippled that garbage energy right down the line.

Every person in that store was affected by every minuscule action that took place in the entire experience. I'm certain those ripples subtly continued to move through New York City like ones on a pond when you drop in a rock.

Significance.

Now for something else...

I make sense of the world through music. I have a particular love for Lord Huron, and you'll find Ben Schneider in my ears quite often.

One of his brilliant lyrics is:

"I belong bodily to the Earth I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first There are many more flames when mine is gone They will build me no shrines and sing me no songs."

I was inspired to write this post after a conversation with a dear friend, where we discussed how part of the spiritual path is coming to terms with (the ego) becoming irrelevant.

There's much dis-ease these days, particularly with the conversations regarding AI. People are worried about their irrelevance.

They attach to their jobs, their intellectual property, and their ideas. The truth is that everyone becomes irrelevant. Pay attention to the actors and films of 100 years ago. Oh wait, do you know them? My guess is that the majority do not.

You belong to the Earth and you will become the Earth once more.

But don't think for a second that you do not have significance. Every action, every word, every step, every space you occupy at EVERY SINGLE MOMENT IN TIME has tremendous, incredible, undeniable significance.

Can you be where you are and notice how amazing that is?