So I had just been reading this book by García Márquez, and I read one line, an unimportant line, random, not even worth the memory, save for one thing. I read it, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of smallness. In the second it took me to read the sentence, I was crushed with the idea that I'm only one person, and that there are billions of other people in the world that I don't know anything about. Reason would ask why I'm having this feeling now, instead of in a month when I will be surrounded by a culture currently unfamiliar to me. I don't know. I don't even know where my head is. Sometimes I imagine someone else is doing exactly what I'm doing at exactly the same time, or I wonder what they could be doing instead, but still sometimes it is hard for me to believe that other places and people exist. Obviously there have always been other people than me, in foreign and exotic places, with exciting memories of things I can't even begin to imagine. I'm not a realist, or idealist or nihilist or whatever it is called. I don't believe that I'm the center of the world and I've created everything around me. I don't believe it, but I've thought about it. What if, what if? I was the only person who actually existed and I have created everything around me, and as soon as it is outside of my contact something ceases to exist. What if my roommates, sleeping in the next room, aren't there until I enter the room? What if I can see the glare the street light throws on the wall when I look, but when I turn back to my computer, it is gone. It is an interesting theory to ponder, but I am too realistic to buy into it. If I'm the center of my universe, why would I create pain? Why would I create such an intense yearning for someone once they are gone, or why would I make them leave in the first place? I can't hardly think it is some subconscience effort to grow as a person, because if I'm creating everything, what is the point of growing as a person. Sometimes I think about it the other way too. What if I'm the pawn of someone else's ideal. And if I am, who's? Someone who thinks about me a lot...because I always seem to be here...But maybe I just don't remember when I'm not here. Or maybe I sleep when I'm not involved directly in their world and I wake when I am. But then why do I sometimes wake alone? I'm not alone. That is the point, isn't it? There are so many people and I don't understand anything. I can't imagine what it must be like to go to bed hungry, or wake up the the sound of shells bursting a hundred yards away, or even to go to a school without computers, and come home to somewhere without running water. It all seems so impossible. How can anyone even take me seriously because I'm so ignorant of so many things. What does it really matter that I know a little about music or movies, or even history and math? It seems to me that I will never be able to learn enough about others to truly understand them.