In the last few weeks, I have written two posts titled Halo and In the Days of Covid-19. One was about the loss of my elder sister weeks before my birth, and the other explored some of my feelings with the social distancing we are practicing during these unprecedented times with Covid-19. Both are traumatic events in their own rights and in both I naturally used the term "in the grander scheme of things", as I ended both on a positive note.
My frequent use of the words, when I am writing or trying to make sense of life, gave me pause for thought. Why do I use it? Why, in these two pieces that talk about times in my life that more or less bookend my current existence? And I find truths I have come to live by.
Life has been a journey, sometimes gifted with the indescribable, sometimes burdened with the unimaginable. And yet, we learn, assimilate, pick ourselves up and be on our way. Over time, I have learnt to see myself as a microscopic dot in the universe, which I believe has a preordained rhythm to which it dances. There are so many intricate natural patterns we cannot fully understand, so many species that interact together where we played no part in setting it in motion, so many events that move in concert where no human could have orchestrated the phenomenon, that there is no doubt in my mind about us being one of immeasurable number of moving pieces the Creator rolled out in a bid to see how we collide, pick ourselves up and be on our way.
The reality is that, much like the creation of celestial bodies, collisions hurt and leave indelible marks in our being. It can take life altering effort to pick ourselves up when we falter. The walls around us close in, and a world that might have seemed much bigger than us before, now feels ensconced in those walls, locked in a space that require us to slowly heal our wounds. As the scars become a part of us, and we reform into a shape that can blend back in with the universe around us, only then can we start to feel again that we are a microscopic dot in a broader tapestry that holds a beautiful picture not of our creation.
It is the hardest the first time it happens. Over time and with repeated collisions, we begin to learn that we cannot forget how we are a small piece in a bigger puzzle. We cannot forget that, whether we can truly influence it or not, we get to play our part in a bigger production. I do not see it as a fatalistic approach to life but more as a calling to choose a life of meaning, where you get to define what it means to you. In the grander scheme of things.
- mh (c) 2020
