Bangkok, Thailand

According to most estimates, the world population is pushing 6.79 billion this week. That’s a lot of people.

As an American, I call home a country that comprises roughly 4.5% of this total. Or, to put it another way, 21 out of about 22 people on Earth aren’t Americans this week. Whatever country you’re from, you, like me, are certain to be a fraction of the total.

And here’s another statistical matter to ponder as we contemplate the world we travel upon: if you take into account that 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water and that we rarely travel more than 150 feet beyond a coastline, even the most ardent travelers don’t really see all that much of the world.

In terms of both people and landscape, then, it is clear that no one person is at the center of things. Or to put it in positive terms, it is clear that we are parts of a larger whole. What statistics tell us abstractly, travel tells us experientially: we are parts of a story beyond ourselves, beyond our families, beyond our nation, and beyond our limited worldview. We are parts of nearly seven billion people alive this very moment. And we are parts of a whole that includes everyone born in the past, as well as the billions yet to be born.

We are parts, not the whole.