I never feel less alone when I drive through the city, by myself, in the middle of the night. And I never feel more isolated when I’m standing in a room full of people, completely unneeded and irrelevant.

-But I’ll tell you, watching the lights fly by through my little glass box, like a fish in a doctor’s office fish tank, I know that I belong. As I hear laughter muffled from across the street, as friends stumble together hand in hand, it’s almost like I am part of them. Like we are together (remember this).

The interconnection of the world isn’t seen, or touched, nor felt— and very rarely appreciated. Like a ball of string pulled apart into an expansive, tangled mess, life blindly depends on everything working together, and as one thing collapses, so does another (remember this).

No, the interconnection of the world can only be explained through the events we individually affect without ever even realizing it. You have undoubtedly, yes, every single one of you:

-Caused a future couple to meet.

-Prevented an impulsive mistake.

-Changed somebody’s mind in a desperate situation.

-Helped save someone’s life (remember this).

You, yes you, have done something so visibly insignificant like bought the last ticket on a plane, ran a red light, spilled coffee on a strangers shirt… simply smiled in a passerby’s direction…

Yet through all of these itsy-bitsy, little things that we forget in a second, or never even acknowledge in the first place, we, as humans, shift the present and we mold the vibration of the future.

So I never feel less alone then when I’m driving through the city, by myself, in the middle of the night. Because even if just for a second, as an extra in the background, I flicker through someone’s life and make the slightest change, I know I have touched more people than I ever would from standing, in plain sight, in the corner of a room full of chaotic, noisy people who couldn’t care less.

(remember that).

Featured Image: Little Italy, NY. Photographer: Marcela Riddick ’16