Microcosm

When we look at the microcosm of a structure or system, we focus on the particulars rather than the whole picture itself. When we become focused on the particulars, we look at the details, the minute components that make up the whole.

But we might end up so fixated on the details that we forget about the big picture. For a writer, it’s kind of like focusing on editing one chapter of a story, then a paragraph of that chapter (maybe even a sentence), and then ignoring the rest of the chapter.

Or it’s like a scientist that studies a plant, and then the leaves of that plant, and the cells of that plant, and the organelles of the cell, and the molecules that compose the organelles, and then they get so lost in studying the molecules that they forget why they were studying the plant in the first place.

To study the microcosm of anything can give us insight and knowledge of the components and mechanisms which function and operate within a structure or system. But how far do we go in our study? At what point do we stop analyzing each minuscule detail to the point that we lose sight of our goal, which is to understand the big picture, rather than the countless tangents and the endless number of microcosms it can lead us down?