The world we inhabit today has a way of making us feel small in comparison with its vastness.

When we walk down the street--or more typically today, drive down it--few of the people we encounter know who we are, or what we have to offer.  A small group of co-workers, friends, and family may have a sense of what we're about, but the minute we leave these small enclaves, we plunge back into a vast sea of anonymity.

We've left behind traditional villages and small towns, with their dense networks of personal associations, for endless newly-manufactured "communities" where we live mostly among strangers (if you can call what we do in the small amount of time we have left after the ordeal of commuting "living").

Our primary frame of reference has now shifted beyond any physical or geographical entity, to the "bigger world" we see endlessly projected on movie and television and computer screens.

Since we never see ourselves there (except for a few trifles we and our friends post about ourselves on social media), it is hard to escape a certain sense of invisibility.  And if we're invisible, how significant could we be?

It may well be that in today's world, recognition is our scarcest luxury.