One pixel

I’m feeling some existential angst. As my eyes opened this morning, my mind wondered, “How am I going to waste my dissipated life today?” Ugh. I crawled back into bed and slept until two so I wouldn’t have to think about it.
After I rolled out of bed and had some coffee, I tried to make a graphic of me as a pixel in a square that represents the world’s population. 6.5 billion pixels is a lot. One pixel is invisible. Even a thousand pixels—me and all the people I’ve ever known—are barely visible.
Although I accept that I’m just a mote, I would still like to make a positive difference or create something that’s remembered or used beyond my demise. But as time passes, that seems less and less likely.
Mainly that’s because I’m not creative enough to conceive anything truly novel and the older I get, the less I seem to invent. Or I imagine things I can’t execute. Mostly I riff and spin on other people’s ideas. That’s OK–certainly better than watching TV or blindly consuming (or staying in bed all day)–but it’s not going to win me a lifetime achievement award.
I never thought I’d say this, but I’m beginning to envy parents. On their bleak days, they can fall back on the hope that their offspring will achieve something. “I’m doing diddly-squat, but my little Suzie might grow up to make a difference. My contribution to humanity is to be a good parent to her.”
I have no comforting fallback. My contribution to humanity is probably nothing more than not fucking up the planet any worse than anyone else. Maybe I should go back to bed.