Insignificant Things: Embracing Impermanence

Bouncy and buoyant, it floats along the wind.  Perfectly uniform, reflecting light and colour.  It rises and falls, lifted along the breeze without effort.  It is both captivating and fleeting.  Then just like that, it is snagged on a tree branch or a toddler’s fingertip and bursts apart, gone forever.

 Yet in its wake, a bubble leaves giggles and laughter and chasing limbs.  It is magical in its ability to chase away even pain with momentary pleasure.  Bubbles are simultaneously poetic and completely insignificant.

 Life is a collection of insignificant things like these. Insignificant things that singularly value little but collectively fill up and spill over to form our entire existence.  Yet they are significant in that they are beautiful and perfect in their own way, in their own time, and in their own place. 

 We too, are like these bubbles. 

 We are told to grab at and fight for significance and possess what we are told are significant things.  We want to matter longer than a moment.  We want to achieve and become popular and known and ‘make an impact.’  We compare and compete when we are nothing more than a bubble in the wind.  I get caught up, with the rest, in wanting more.  I want to have a permanent effect.

 Even so, I try to stuff every bubble I can find into my pocket. Travel, experiences, achievements, wealth… I chase these bubbles as they bobble on the wind and then I fall into pits and snares chasing what cannot be caught.  Only to have the bubble get further out of reach and disappear before my eyes.

 I was told that I would be somebody and I desire so many things.  But it is meaningless.  Maybe I am insignificant, one bubble in a wind of many, here for a short time only to be inevitably snuffed out.  Yet I can also bring delight, I can bring joy being a bubble for a sea of toddlers wide-eyed and full of giggles.  Wholly significant but also completely insignificant at the same time.

 Embracing my limitations, being who exactly I am, and recognizing my own impermanency and insignifance might yet be the key to being somebody after all.