NOT KEEPING SCORE

This is a little game I play from time to time: I like to make lists of all the people I know.

I start off with best friends and family. Then I list other friends and people I’ve slept with, then coworkers, extended family, acquaintances, people I’ve met recently, anyone I’ve ever worked with, gone to school with, or was introduced to. I finish off with random introductions, 3rd degree connections, and people I don’t know by name but could recognize by face, like the corner market guy.

This is usually a good amount of people;

it makes me feel loved. Aw.

Or at least, known. Thank God: I do exist…

But then I quiz myself (a friend taught me this — I can’t take credit). I try and name all the people I can think of that ever lived between the beginning of time and the 21st century. I give myself 20 minutes or so. For those of you playing along at home, how many are there? A hundred? Two-fifty? Then I think about the number of people that lived during that time — billions?

That’s a lot of people.

So, in all that time and out of all those billions of people, I’m only aware of about a hundred or two? Shit. What does this mean? Will I — for someone playing this game in the year 4006 — be one of those names? Will you?

Keep in mind I said “aware of” not “influenced by” when I mentioned the ratio of billions of people in existence to those I can name. It’s important. Following?

The next thing I do is this: I compare the number of people that I know (or, that know me) to the number of names I could remember from before. What’s the ratio? Further, how does it make you feel?

You either feel very important or incredibly, incredibly small. Me:
I feel both.

Here’s where the “aware” vs. “influenced by” comes into play. See, those names you remember — famous people, really, that you could recall — are only a portion of those who have influenced you — directly or indirectly, aware or not — in the sense that influence means affected by. There is no way of knowing how you’ve been affected by the billions of people interacting on the billions of levels all throughout time.

(Yes, I swear I’m not high while writing this.)

Consequently, there is no way of knowing how you have, are, and will, influence the billions of people who existed, exist and will exist. This is exciting! and,

terribly frightening. This…is a lot…of responsibility.

When my friend and I first discussed the game, he used it as a way to feel “less bad.” He noticed that the amount of famous people he could remember out of all the billions of people throughout time was few. This gave him a great amount of comfort, because then,
he didn’t feel so bad if he
Fucked Up. (Chances were
no one would remember him. He finds comfort in meaninglessness.) Me, I like to do the opposite: I like to
Do The Math. I multiply all the people I know by the probable average number of people they know, until I reach 1 billion people, and imagine the likelihood that something I’ve done or said or am has reverberated out this line of people across X degrees of separation. And then I imagine how many of these people even know I exist. And I imagine

this number is small.

But I find that I feel really good about this, about knowing that it’s highly likely that, even if no one ever remembers my name — it is O-K. Because I still
had a reason
to exist.