Statistically speaking, absolutely no one cares

And I think that is fine

In an effort to make the beginning of this less demoralising, let me start from the premise that Life is very important. Each of us has been ludicrously fortunate to live during this abundant epoch in history, and if you are reading this from a phone or computer in a house with a roof, you have been luckier still. Almost unimaginably so. So the purpose here is not to devalue the magnificence of every life, and every day that is lived. Life is in fact, absolutely remarkable, and very cool.

However…

While we spend our lives agonising over profile pictures, pondering which arrangement of scatter cushions emit the correct level of edginess, what lactose-free milk says we are equal parts unique and discerning, or what face to make when we are listening to music on the tube. The world, and it’s inhabitants, absolutely, undeniably, do not care. They don’t even care a bit less than we care. They just don’t care at all. And even if they actually did notice some of this stuff, which is possible, they still wouldn’t care. 

We are all so deeply concerned with our own lives we haven’t possibly got the bandwidth left to feel genuine or prolonged empathy for many other people. Some family and close friends yes, but I would bet that those people number less than 20 for most of us. Using myself as an example, the number of people who’s lives I am so invested in that I would be sincerely effected if they moved house, job, or broke up with a partner certainly number less than 20.

Humans are social creatures and historically one would need the approval of a tribe or band in order to survive. To find mates, food, or better still, mates and food. So our hardware dictates that we are aware of other peoples perception of us and our relative standing in the social order. Human beings are wired to seek status, not to seek happiness. Status is no longer critical to our survival, but our brains have certainly developed to place a high value on social status that would once have determined our access to essential resources. Social media of course has not served to dilute these status games in our brains, rather it has turned it up to 100. It arms us to the teeth with more data points for comparison than ever before. Likes, views, blue ticks, not to mention the heavily edited and curated content itself. It is not very healthy. Envy after all, is the only one of the seven deadly sins that is no fun whatsoever. With social media we spend a few moments looking through a little green window of resentment at someone’s perfect hairline, then countless hours examining and harshly criticising our own lives and failings. But the inclination is to assume that everyone is apportioning their lives in the same ratio. 90% for you, 10% for them. Thankfully this is simply not true.

“If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are”. - Montesquieu (300 years prior to TikTok)

A large number of the decisions I have taken in the last 12 months felt huge to me, so utterly monumental that they may in fact distort the very fabric of the universe, and possibly change the fate of humanity. I agonised over each one endlessly. In my head it was like the whole planet held its breath, and waited for me to make my moves. Then of course it would watch intently as my life unfolded in the aftermath, and snigger at me when I fell. I have made some relatively large decisions in fairness. I got married, I left the country I was living in and all my friends, I moved to the polar opposite side of the planet where I don’t really know anyone or speak the language, and I left my salaried job without a discernible money making plan. And yet, there was no mention of this on any news outlet. It didn’t appear to go even slightly viral. No experts were debating the relative merits and shortcomings of my decisions before, during, or after. And Piers Morgan either didn’t notice, or chose for once not to have an opinion.

The aftermath was exactly as a logical person would expect. Someone filled my previous job, and the industry continued without a moments disruption. Someone moved into our old apartment, they paid the rent and neither our neighbours nor the landlord cared in the slightest. The day after our wedding, the venue was getting ready for the next one. Old friends made new friends, I made new friends, and everything kept moving at exactly the same pace and in exactly the same direction as it always had. The sun rises, and it sets. It doesn’t slow down or speed up. It doesn’t care what shoes you have on, and neither does anyone else.

Mathematically, it is even more clear. Take one of the big decisions of the last year for me, getting married. I can estimate that about 200 people had a direct interest in that at the time. So to express that as a percentage, 99.9999975% (approx. 200 people of the current world population of 8 billion ish) doesn’t know that I even got married, and a further half of those don’t really care. Then, when you consider that apparently 108 billion people have ever existed, the percentage of people that have ever cared about this seemingly huge decision in my life dwindles to near unfathomable pointlessness. 200 = 0.000000185% of 108 billion. 1.85 x 10^-7.

This is all at once slightly dispiriting, and completely liberating.

This is not to say that no decision has ever mattered, or that no one has ever cared about anything. The fact is that there is a very very VERY low likelihood that anyone of consequence genuinely cares what you are doing. It may appear as though people are looking, but they really aren’t paying attention to themselves let alone to you. So do the thing. Be brave. Make mistakes. Do another thing Be different, definitely be uncool. Everyone else is busy worrying what you think of them, and as you know you don’t really care either. Enjoy your new found freedom.