Number of you = 1
How many people you know/you matter to = 1,500*
Number of others on planet = 6.8bn (approx)
The impact your absence would make to the world = 1,500/6.8bn = 0.00000022%
Number of discovered planets = 361
The impact your absence would make if all the planets discovered so far were inhabited = (1500/6.8bn)/361 = 0.0000000006%.
And so on and so on.
* Assuming for person of average life. Differences for CEOs, artists, inventors, and politicians.
* Eight solar + 353 extrasolar
23.6.09
Perspective
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8 comments:
you forgot the artistic kind - authors/ poets/ actors.
Very cool.
But also remember what the two great Eastern religions tell us: all things, living and non-living, are one and the separation of things is an illusion. So you know every thing and every thing knows you.
By that logic, the impact of the absence is HUGE.
So yes, someone in Uzbekistan cares deeply about you.
And adding to km, there's also Donne: "any man's death diminishes me" etc
Hmph. That Donne, always gets the last word on any metaphysical topic.
Donne to death, I say!
(ok, that makes little sense, but I just wanted to say it).
Talking of Donne and death, I hear that when old John died, they went and told the sexton, and the sexton toll'd the bell... (And sadly, that's not mine -- it's part of an old pun)
Szer:
How utterly remiss of me. Edited.
KM:
Don't they also say that everything is an illusion? So everything is nothing.
Brin/KM/Bride:
Ol' John should have gone to Sicily and become a bigshot. Then he'd have been Don Donne.
Which is why most prefer to stay in their own little worlds where they matter 100%.
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