Many people profess to be aware of their smallness in the scheme of existence, but when it comes down it – on a day-to-day basis – people, myself included, get caught up in the details, passions, and conflicts of their everyday lives. In doing so, they embody what Carl Sagan, imagining looking down from space on a Pale Blue Dot called, “Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe.”
In an interesting piece last week in the New York Times by Sam Anderson, NBA Superstar Kevin Durant echoes Sagan’s thought about trying to have a “universe perspective,” which Anderson takes as evidence of Durant’s “galaxy brain” arguing that perhaps the best way to describe Durant is as a “religious figure” in the basketball world. That seems to overstate Durant a bit although I will admit to being a longtime fan. Unlike Durant, Sagan is asking us to try to step outside of ourselves and see the universe as a whole and our very small place in it; to identify the overall irrelevance of individual existence in the scheme of a massive and awe-inspiring universe.
I suspect Durant, and many other people with power and influence, have a hard time not seeing themselves as important. For Durant, the passion and enthusiasm (as well as the vitriol) so many of his fans have for his career must have a considerable impact on his perspective. That said, the part of Anderson’s piece that most reveals Durant’s capacity for a “universal perspective,” follows:
“What Durant understands, he explained, is that the people writing to him aren’t actually writing to him. Kevin Durant, to them, is just an abstraction, a guy on the TV, a figment of their imaginations. So what they are doing is projecting onto him the pain or hatred or longing that they actually feel about real things in their own lives. This is why he likes to write back. He wants to show them that he is an actual human, just like them, with his own fears and hatreds and longings. He wants to connect with them on that level. Even the angry ones, he believes, have good hearts. Hatred, he told me, is just another form of passion, and therefore a sign that you’re really alive.”
In effect, Durant has empathy for the fan experience, and wants to use some of his platforms to help his fans achieve a more “universal perspective.” In contrast, Sagan is asking us to try to step outside of ourselves and see the world as a whole and our very small place in it, and on some level the relative irrelevance of all of human existence. Why Anderson tries to link the two is unclear.
Anderson suggests that Durant is practicing a sort of basketball religion and is very reflective, taking time to reconsider his past and his smallness in the scheme of existence. However, Durant’s behavior on and off the court, suggests he gets just as caught up in conflict and passion as the next person. This to me suggests Durant is revisionist in his view of his capacity to engage people as individual humans and convert them from a “universe perspective.” Regardless of this revisionist attitude, it is clear from the piece and Durant’s on-court excellence, that he is a supremely dedicated individual, able to put in the vast amounts of effort that are required to excel at the highest levels of competition.
That sort of individual effort is what makes the relative irrelevance of human existence so awe-inspiring. We all – on this pale blue dot – have the capacity within us for different forms of greatness, and Durant’s form of physical greatness has inspired millions of people. On top of that, if Durant is able to help people develop a more universal perspective and a deeper sense of empathy, then he will certainly have contributed to other humans achieving greatness. Indeed, I believe part of Sagan’s premise is that when we reduce all human struggles to a pale blue dot in the middle of a vast, cold universe, we have no choice but to have more empathy for all forms of life.