04 November 2021

Cosmic Insignificance

I once set Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” as my phone background because I thought the grainy photograph would put my problems into perspective. Then I deleted it because it was ugly.

Cosmic insignificance therapy is an idea by Oliver Burkeman that follows a similar line of thinking. By broadening your perspective on the cosmos, everything in life (including human existence) is trivial. While this mindset is ripe for an existential crisis, it offers a more healing idea: Lowered stakes. Without trivializing problems, you can approach them from a higher vantage point.

Humanity’s past, present, and—possibly future—are somewhere on a blue pixel in space.