The Puzzle

Could the tree live with even one of its roots missing?

I was peering up at a mountain, Hesperus in the La Plata Range to be exact. Even though this 13,000-foot mountain was gigantic by my reference points it wasn’t even a nugget to the universe, nor even to our solar system, where mountains on Mars dwarf anything on Earth.

And in the grand scheme of the cosmos, with its millions upon millions of galaxies, our whole planet, so large to us, doesn’t even rate, much less the tiny creatures that cloy about its continents. To paraphrase Rick at the end of the movie, Casablanca, the problems of one or two people in this world don’t amount to a hill of beans. And a hill of beans ain’t much either. We seem to be, as individuals, insignificant creatures. Think of how important a gnat is to you, or an individual bacterium living on your skin, which sheds from your finger unnoticed. We are, it seems, important only to ourselves. Each ego an individual locus which seems, to itself alone, the center of its own universe. While on the grand scales of time and distance, each of us is less than a gnat.

Drive through a forest. You’ll see thousands of trees along the way. And in each tree, there is a bird, probably more than one. Do any of the trees, which live longer than do we ourselves, have a name? Do the sparrows which build their nests in them? They are born, live and die, their transits and their passings unmarked by any monument or calendar. And though you have a name and an incept date and even a social security number and a Facebook accounts, in a generation or two, when the last of those who’ve known you have passed on, too, no one will remember you. You’re swallowed up not only by death, yet also by the ignominy time brings.

The word ‘insignificant’ comes to mind when thinking about a human life. No matter how important you are to you, in the universe, to the universe, you are as nothing. Tiny, fractional at most.

But I’d like to propose another frame through which to view the picture which is you. The frame of quality instead of quantity. When looked at as quantitative fractions, we are superfluous. When seen through the shattering prism of numbers, we are mere fractions. The universe doesn’t need us to survive. It doesn’t need us to be counted as part of itself in order to remain itself, to be seen as the universe.

The scattering, shattering prism through which the individual views itself when it is separate and apart is as a quantity. Yet as a quality, we are each a representation of the whole. We may be tiny, but we are not insignificant when looked at through a prism which unites and joins. We may be infinitesimal, not taking up much space or lasting long in time, yet that doesn’t make us unimportant. We are each essential representations of the whole. We are each essential ingredients to the completion of the whole picture. Each of us reflects the whole just as each shard of a shattered mirror reflect the whole image. Yet the mirror itself isn’t whole if even one of its pieces is missing.  It’s as if reality were a puzzle with an uncountable number of pieces. If even one piece is missing, the puzzle remains incomplete, the picture is imperfect.

And so, the puzzle longs for each of us, so that it can complete itself, as much as we long for our place within it to complete ourselves. We need the whole, yet the whole also requires us. Remember that the next time you think you don’t matter, the next time you think you don’t count.

© 2022 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within