Thoughts on Heliocentrism Versus Hello, Egocentrism

Did you ever do that thing where you look down at the sidewalk as you’re walking, instead of looking up at where you are going, and it suddenly begins to feel as if you are walking in place and the world is moving past you? This used to happen to me when I was a child. I could make it happen almost anytime by looking down at my feet while I was walking, especially if I softened my gaze. People movers in airports can give you this same feeling of having the world move by you instead of you moving through the world. Some people walk through the world as if everything around them is simply a backdrop for their own story. They don’t make way for other people on the sidewalk or anywhere else. They might not even notice most of the other people around them, at least not as individuals. Their worldview is all about them. They’ve not done the emotional or spiritual version of listening to Copernicus. They believe absolutely everything revolves around them. It can be helpful in life to check your own revolutions from time to time. Mainstream media teaches us to be self-absorbed. It IS important to take care of ourselves, and yet…not only do we need to make space for other people in our world, we also need to believe they deserve that space as much as we do.