The World's Just Getting Too Big.

So there are 6.7 billion people currently carrying out their daily business on Earth's surface. By 2042, wikipedia tells me there will be upwards of around 9 billion given current growth patterns. While most of the press revolving around this topic of human proliferation pressuring the coping mechanisms of various regional ecosystems, I'm more worried about what it's going to do on my ego.

I'm not sure about you, or the drunk at the end of the bar, or the bus driver that wouldn't let me off the bus while stopped in gridlock traffic for a 2 minute time span that felt as long as the 2 minutes one ponders through prior to attempting a drunken kiss, but I really want to be the best at something at some point in my life. When I write "best" I don't mean, like, beating a bunch of children in a footrace despite being in what researchers would consider the prime of my physical ability. I mean, like, no one in the world could possibly do something that I do better than I do it. I want to actually be the best in the world at something. One out of 6.7 billion. The 100th percentile.

What I'm worried about, then, with this rampant population growth is that with every second that passes, more than 2 babies are born into this world. That's 2 more people that could potentially be better than me at everything I try to put my hands to (sure one of them is currently broken leaving me at a slight disadvantage but I should have it's previously mediocre assistance back within a few weeks). So what's it going to be? Will I start staying up till dawn forcing the jargon of economic theory into my brain? Will I somehow single-handedly (ha! that's sort of a joke to go along with the broken arm) stop global warming in its melting path? Will my name be in Rolling Stone in 30 years just as Mitch Mitchell's was last month, followed by praise for my innovative and technically immaculate drumming? Will I even make a meaningless last second shot while playing basketball with myself in which the seconds that are winding down are nothing more than an internal monologue created to serve as an arena for my own accomplishment?

Ambition, I've decided, totally blows. Statistics just aren't going to let me be the best at anything. I'll be lucky to even be really good at something. I mean really good, like Dicky Simpkins good. Sure the guy got drafted into the NBA and played for the championship winning Bulls, but there were still thousands of people better than him at playing basketball. You would think, then, that with this realization that infinite accomplishment in any single activity or area is a certain impossibility, I would give up hope and accept the mediocre life that I likely have ahead of me. Unfortunately, I don't know if that's going to be the case. Anxiety has infected my blood. I wake up in the morning, not able to go back to sleep because I could be using the time trying to get good at something. I don't travel, because it take too much time. I could get a little better at something in the time, for example, that it takes for me to go to the store for more cheese. I'm satisfied eating a grilled bread sandwich rather than a grilled cheese sandwich and sitting while eating it, thinking of things that I could be doing to try to get slightly better at something.

Clearly the anxiety over the attempted achievement of unachievable goals stem from my own, deep, nearly unconscious hopes of immortality, but I'm going to go ahead and blame it on the increasing population. Feels better already. I might even hit the snooze button tomorrow morning, on the alarm clock that I am setting despite having absolutely nowhere to be for 4 days.