Tiny

Summary

The poem "Tiny" by Jonathan Greene reflects on the insignificance of individual human existence in the vastness of the universe.

Abstract

"Tiny" is an existentialist poem that juxtaposes the grandeur of space exploration and the cosmos with the mundane aspects of human life. It challenges the reader to consider their relative importance in the universe, suggesting that despite our daily concerns and self-perceived significance, we are minuscule in the grand scheme of things. The poem emphasizes that most people on Earth will remain unknown to the majority, and even our descendants may not remember us. It encourages a perspective shift from self-importance to a humble acknowledgment of our true scale in the universe.

Opinions

The author believes that humans tend to overestimate their importance and the impact of their actions.
The poem suggests that our daily preoccupations, such as social media presence or job titles, are trivial when viewed from a cosmic perspective.
It implies that the pursuit of space colonization is a more significant endeavor than our individual lives.
The poem criticizes those who complain about minor inconveniences, like wearing a mask, without recognizing the broader context of their existence.
Jonathan Greene asserts that each person is just a small part of the universe, and life will continue unaffected even if one individual is removed from the equation.

An Existentialist Poem

There is an entire solar system full of planets and stars and some days we send people in a spaceship up into the sky and they arrive on another planet Do you think about that when you are ordering your latte? That a human just left our planet and went into the sky and touched down somewhere else, where there is no “life” and here we are, you and me, thinking that we matter

What about the days where you feel so big? So overly important because of what you do but did you ever think about this… If there is life on another planet or on other planets, in the sky, within the geographical constraints of the universe, if those limits even exist at all, do you think they will ever think about you? Do you think many of the people in a small town in a European countryside care about you and the amount of paper you are pushing or the number of people you “supervise” or how many followers you have on Instagram?

I want you to know something very important

You are tiny

I know it’s hard to hear and to think about, but the majority of the humans on the face of the Earth will never know anything about you It’s quite possible that your own relatives, in one hundred years, your direct descendants, won’t even think about you or your power, so how is it that you puff that chest out so far? How does it look in that mirror the size of the universe that you use to make yourself feel better? Is it really hard to know that you are so small?

You want your life to be super macro, but in reality, it’s tinier than micro when compared with the population of the world and the amount of those people who will even know that for one second, you even existed There are people trying to figure out how to colonize space for when our planet implodes and here we are, you (not me), tapping your feet and hemming your haw and spouting your uninformed diatribe because you don’t like how a mask feels around the mouth that speaks so many words that no one will ever hear, and far, far less will ever care about

You are tiny

A bug on the windshield of the universe A blade of grass, one dewdrop in the morning One second of an endless loop of ambient sound One grain of rice in an entire silo full of it You are a human being, reading these words on a computer or phone, sitting somewhere, in a town or city, in a county, in a state, in a country, in a continent, inside this orb of a planet, rotating continuously in the middle of a system, where there are so many other gargantuan objects that look just like us — planets, stars, asteroids and somehow, even with all of that you still think you are a vital cog in this machine

I’m here to tell you that you are so, so small and that even if we pull this cog (you) out, nothing will change, very few people will notice so when you climb up on your high horse later today maybe you should think of a space-enabled drone and how it could start to zoom out from you where you are standing in front of where you live and how small you would keep getting as it rises into the sky, through the clouds, higher and higher, into space and then beyond and when it’s up there, at the edge of the universe, try to think how big you look from there

You are tiny

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