The horrible realization that you don't matter

That awful moment when you realize that you are unimportant and dispensible.

It tends to induce a sort of hollow feeling inside yourself. Of course its not like you ever expected to be welcomed into society with open arms; but it hurts to think that if you were gone tommorrow, it wouldnt take very long for your family and friends to get over it.

You find this out when you come home from a vacation or wake up after sleeping through the weekend. You have no e-mails, no one has called you and your goldfish died.

The fact that you are unimportant hurts more than it should. Maybe it's because you rely on people more than you'd like to admit. You find comfort in knowing that there are people out there who actually care about you.

It's a shame there isnt, and now you're left miserable and alone. Only now you know there isnt a reason to try not to be.

A realization that some come to when they conclude that salvation doesn't exist. They don't focus on the fact that they no longer have to constrict themselves to a grid of morality, but that they are not part of some larger scheme. The disturbing realization that there is no untangible postmortem. There is nothing special about them as an individual, there are no secrets beyond their comprehension that wait them in a great glory filled future, and the very ego they think is keeping them alive dies inside.

The scope and immense nature of this epiphany can clearly be seen. Movies of this time focus on the idea that something is not as it seems, that we are part of a force we cannot even imagine. The Matrix, Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, etc. Is it simply a new ego they seek, or to know that something is truly beyond comprehension?

The horrible realization that you don't matter isn't always moment of self pity. Sometimes it's you, understanding your place in the universe, and your insignificance when you compare yourself to the entirety of everything. It's a creeping realization that seventy or so years isn't really all that much, and that almost everything you experience, let alone everything you do, will be forgotten within the space of your lifetime. But, sometimes the only thing horrible about the realization is that it is inescapable.

It's like when you're sitting up late, listening to music, and you realize that in a hundred years, MAYBE two or three bands from your entire generation will be remembered. That doesn't make the music any less great. Or when you're reading a book, one that makes you sit up nights, thinking and wondering, and you realize that the only books written in your lifetime that anyone will still read in a hundred years are the books which are included in a school curriculum. That doesn't mean that the book's ideas aren't important. The relentless march of time renders nearly everything and everyone anonymous and forgettable when viewed over a long enough time line. But, you still have an identity and memories of your own. What about when you re-visit the first web page that you ever bookmarked, and get a 404 Not Found error? The Internet changes so rapidly that no human being can ever keep up with it all. But it's still vital, important, fun, and useful. In reality, realizing that you don't matter is nothing more than remembering that you are mortal.

This is why almost every faith discusses either an afterlife, reincarnation, or your inseperable oneness with the universe--because the species and the society need us to progress as though we (as individuals) matter to the whole. Being able to picture yourself as a continuing part of the universe on over indefinite time frame makes it easier to approach life with the solemn gravity required to do great things.

There's a step beyond realizing that you don't matter, though: accepting the fact that you don't matter, and moving on with your life. If you don't matter to anybody else, then the most important thing is to do the things that matter to you. Make yourself happy, make your friends and loved ones happy. None of us matter in the great scheme of the universe; everyone you know and care about are just a handful of lives that don't matter to anybody except you. Live your life like time is cheap, because time is cheap to everybody but you and those around you. Take time to do the things that you enjoy, to do the things that matter to you. Realizing that you don't matter to the species, planet, or universe is realizing that your time is to do with as you please.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Update, from Fight Club's This Is Your Life:
You have to realize that someday you will die.
Until you know that, you are useless.