Even in a vast and indifferent cosmos the righteous are convinced that humans are the crown of God’s creation. And not just humanity in general, but a small sub-section of humanity in particular: the kinship group of religious zealots to which they happen to belong. This narcissistic idea is repeated, with monotonous regularity, throughout the holy books of the Abrahamic tradition. No thought or deed escapes God’s attention, or so the Bible insists. Yet, individually and collectively, we humans may be over-estimating our importance, our singularity, our special status as the ‘chosen ones’, our centrality to the creator’s intentions.
Despite enjoying a starring role in the psychodrama of our lives, our influence and indispensability – even in our own locale – may not match our own lofty estimation. The truth is that most people in the world are getting on just fine without us. If you can’t imagine your own non-existence, just take note of how keenly your absence is being felt, right now, in New York or Paris. No one is missing you on the trading floors of Wall Street or in the pavement cafés of Montmartre. Life, I feel compelled to say, is carrying on pretty well without you in almost every other town and village on the planet.
We project ourselves into the centre of the action where we have no claim to encroach, then orientate the world to keep ourselves at the heart of things. Anyone who has a satnav already knows how this works. With every mile we drive, and every bend in the road we negotiate, our surroundings are constantly re-aligned to reflect our current position, our direction of travel and our choice of destination. The world seems to revolve around us; we no longer travel from A to B but from me to B.
