I’m pretty much irrelevant. It’s the honest-to-God truth. The path of awakening reveals to me, at almost every turn provided I observe closely, how I’m not really somebody at all.

Whenever I think I’m important, significant, a stand-out, a VIP, another situation show up to show me that I’m over the hill, washed up, a has-been.

I am obsolete.

While thinking about being on the other side of special stand-out-ishness, I remembered, as a kid, watching the 1984 film The Natural. The plot isn’t important here, only the fact about the main character, a “natural” at baseball, getting a second chance to be a hero later on in life. And not only does he make good on his promise as the best baseball player there ever was; he also achieves redemption.

It’s a touching story, but it’s also a work of fantasy as well as a sleight-of-hand. Redemption never comes through human agency (only through divine grace), and aging very rarely makes us more relevant, especially not in our own youth culture.

No, the spiritual truth is that “everything being our teacher” is conspiring to help us–you, me, everyone with eyes wide open–to accept being totally irrelevant. Invisible. Outta the game for good. Doner than done.

And, hey, if you think you’re an exception, dear reader, think again. In fact, if you think you’re at the very peak of relevance, you’re probably not. And now the plot twist: yet as you start accepting being irrelevant, you come into the beauty of being Nobody at all. As Ram Dass probably said, being Nobody is the same as being at Home.

For Nobody is boundlessly content and is at Home anywhere.