Total Solar Eclipse

        

           When reading the story Total Eclipse, the passage that caught my attention was this one:

“If you were to glance out one day and see a row of mushroom clouds rising on the horizon, you would know at once what you were seeing, remarkable as it was, was intrinsically not worth remarking. No use running to tell anyone. Significant as it was, it did not matter a whit. For what is significance? It is significance for people. No people, no significance.” – Total Eclipse by Anne Dillard

This passage contained a concept I had never thought about before: significance. What Anne Dillard said, that significance is only relevant to people, is a scary thought. This idea is something people fear, and choose not to address or talk about. People crave significance; have the desire to be important and revelevant in a larger picture. I liked how bluntly Dillard made her point. She did not beat around the bush and to reason why this was such a feeling humans crave. She simply stated that significance is something only humans feel. A tree does not see or feel significance in another tree, or a bird. They don’t run away to tell their friends about something significant that happened to them.

Although I like this passage because it evokes a lot of thought, I don’t like the feeling that everything is insignificant to everything other than humans. I think Dillard’s goal in writing this passage was to help add to her story of the total eclipse she experienced. It emphasized the idea that without people witnessing the total eclipse, just as the cars that continued going to work, nothing would change. There would be a solar eclipse, but it would not be significant until it was witnessed and acknowledged by a human, just as she and many others did on the hilltop.

The passage by itself can create a gloomy thought, but when placed in the story, it becomes inspiring. Without people, no event is significant. Her point is to stop and witness the significant.