Just wondering about how my life could have touched someone else’s and I realized this. Maybe you’re just joking around online and mention something that triggers an idea in someone else that leads to revolutionary new things that impact humans everywhere. Even if you’re forgotten, or uncredited, you had a meaningful contribution.
This idea reminds me of an observation I’ve often had, which is that there are no true auteurs, in other words, nothing creative or special is ever the product of one person. Even in the most extreme case of an artist who lives their whole life without ever being discovered, there is also the person who eventually discovers the legacy and does the work of making it accessible to people, not to mention all the people who validate the life’s work by viewing it and relating it to their lives.
What the idea does for me is it helps me understand that I don’t need to “complete the universe” with what I do, in other words, the way OP put it is great.
I mean, imagine someone credits their toilet or their shower, which definitely have triggered a lot of ideas