Let’s say existence is a song. Consider our daily interactions with the world - are we overplaying our part? Needless solos and extraneous drum fills when the song we inhabit would be made so much better by keeping a steady, simple beat?
And when I say world, we need not think in terms of billions. As is well-documented by any number of clichés, one’s world (while still containing the full weight of the term) can be very small. Choose a community as you would your bandmates. And once you’ve chosen them, it only makes sense to craft your part with rather than over them. Any musician can tell you, the player (no matter how good their chops) who performs out of time, out of tune, or excessively without consideration of what the dynamics and the feel of the song calls for brings the group’s songs down as a whole.
The era of nations is past, may the era of bands be what succeeds it. Not an orchestra, but a small, tightly-knit band, that is the medium by which I want my life’s songs to be performed. Within that realm, I am utterly willing to sacrifice the excessive flourishes that only serve to call attention to myself.
This tendency changes, though, once we begin to view the world, our world, in more abstract terms as a billion-plus concept of generalized humanity. As this becomes more the case, we grow inclined to just go on playing our solos all the more bombastically. Understanding that any dynamics we impart by subtly stepping back or tastefully underplaying will be lost in the general hubbub anyway, we figure we may as well play our part as excessively and self-indulgently as possible, if only for the chance of attention in a billion.
Friends, make the world small again - let us form a band! Within a small community, sacrifice gives a much, much better return on its investment. A simple beat doesn’t just get lost in droning background noise, it has a real opportunity to bring out something greater. I think there is much truth to this: the tighter-knit and more selective the community you choose to inhabit, the more you’ll be willing to sacrifice for its ultimate success.