Center-of-the-Universe Thinking

Don Marquis (1878-1937) was an Illinois-born writer, humorist, newspaper (remember them?) columnist. He is remembered best for creating the characters "Archy" (a cockroach) and "Mehitabel" (a cat), supposed authors of humorous verse. In a New York Tribune column he wrote of a conversation between Archy and a conceited toad named Warty Bliggens. (now read inset -- lack of punctuation is as Marquis intended).

do not tell me
said warty bliggens
that there is not a purpose
in the universe

the thought is blasphemy
that warty bliggens
considers himself to be
the center of the same universe

the earth exists
to grow toadstools for him
to sit under
the sun to give him light
by day and the moon
to make beautiful
the night for the sake of
warty bliggens

ask rather
said warty bliggens
what the universe
has done to deserve me

if i were a human being
i would notlaugh
too complacently
at poor warty bliggens

for similar absurdities
have only too often
lodged in the crinkles
of the human cerebrum

Indeed, it is a basic human presumption that we are, each of us, the Center of the Universe -- like Warty Bliggens.  Center-of-the-Universe thinking is all over the place.  Need evidence?  Well, the Chinese call their land The Middle Kingdom?  World maps in the U.S. have, guess which country, at the center?  Yet, what country would you guess would be at the center of a map purchased, say, in England or France?  

One Peanuts cartoon had Charlie Brown watching Lucy and another girl from afar.  He approaches them: “You girls were talking about me, weren’t you!” he says accusingly. “No we weren’t,” the girls say with a smug expression.  Charlie Brown reverts to his earlier distant position and waits a bit, only to return once again and ask: “How come you girls never talk about me?”  More center-of-the-universe thinking.
 
The Polish scientist Nicolaus Copernicus recorded in 1543 AD, in The Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, that the universe, in fact, does not revolve around planet Earth.   Yet, it's hard for us to believe.  Some of us --some a bit more than other-- escape from the tyranny of the self being the center, but only just a little bit.  We get angry, resentful and afraid -- basically because people don’t behave the way we know they should.  After all, aren’t we the center of the universe?  It's hard to come to the realization that we, most assuredly, are not.  What's wrong with all those would-be subjects of ours who aren’t paying us homage?  
 

I submit there are at least two great causes for optimism in this observation.  First, since most of humanity doesn’t really concern itself with us, we are quite free of the bondage of others’ opinions.  Our slavery is of our own creation.  Thus, we hold our own keys to freedom.  Second, once we see that others suffer from the same uni-centric disease that we do, we can lighten-up and reach out for a touch of human contact. 

Yul Bryner once said, “We come into this world alone, and we leave it alone; and if someone offers you kindness along the way, you don’t spit on it.”  Bryner’s is the minimalist version.  A more maximalist version might be that of the Christian, that should sound something more like, if you touch someone, you help to free them from their own self-obsessed bondage.  By reaching outside yourself, you initially delight them; but quickly that turns to teaching by example.  You show that it can be done, and you role-model the benefits of doing so.

If you live as though you are the center of the universe, you will discover people’s orbits tend to fly away from you.  But if you reject that you may well discover that people are attracted to you.  Oddly, you become --directionally-- the center of much more.  Consider the burden Warty Bliggens and Charlie Brown have brought upon themselves.  A follower of Jesus' Way would do well to recognize daily they are not the center of the universe.   That, my friends, is a blessing.  So, for today, go pay attention to someone else.        

See you Sunday. 

E. Taveirne