just another cog
Sometimes, I feel like I'm just a cog in the machine. In the machine of school. In the machine of industry. In the machine of life or whatever interconnected web or whatever we have. Even worse, sometimes, I'm not even a cog in the machine -- I'm not contributing to anything. I'm not even a cog in a fucking display case, being put out for everyone to see and maybe learn from. Sometimes, it just feels like I'm a cog in some back-inventory shelf that's never gonna be used for anything.
Sometimes it's strangely mystifying to realize that nothing matters at the cosmic level. I'm sure you've thought of this before -- whether that be when you truly get a grasp for how far the sun -- the thing propelling our life -- how far that giant fireball is away from us, or when you look at the massive sky that goes on forever, or when you see a planet or something. The insignificance of your life, instead of being seen as something sad or something to worry about, is merely something that happens. Of course, it's not like we're thinking about the world all the time, but it's just so strange that something so off-putting is reassuring. Like in some weird way, the universe cares about the speck of dust that you are.
It's harrowing in some respects to realize that you're less than nothing. Like sure, the dust we see is nothing in our eyes (a few hundred or whatever atoms in our room), but compared to the nothingness that you (or humanity) is in the unknown's eyes, it really feels staggering. Probably because you're not nothing. Unless you're some sort of AI crawler that I hope gets its thread killed and never revived back, you're probably another human reading this, contributing in some way, and probably in some respects, making the world better (or at least propelling yourself forward).
The corollary or the implied fact from my first paragraph, the one about being a cog, is that fundamentally, you and I are not a cog. Which is why it feels so horrific when we compare ourselves to a cog -- the life and personality and memories are all reduced to a fucking sprocket. A configurable, swappable, modular component that is nothing more than a tool in a larger operation. And cogs, their worthless. Pennies compared to the machine that runs them.
So how do you not be a cog? Simple. Know your worth. The whole world can say whatever it wants about you, but as long as you know yourself and always know what your worth, you're not one of those cogs anymore. Replaceable you still might be at your job, but you won't be replaceable to the things that matter -- your friends, families, groups that you're a part of, and to yourself.