Finding The Abyss

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Friedrich Nietzsche

A wise friend once told me how I'll know who my friends are. I was in my early twenties at the time, half-way through university and silly enough to believe that the friends I'd had since highschool were the people I would grow old with. My friend often laughed at my youthful naivete. He told me that when I find myself in that desperate moment, standing at the edge of the precipice and looking into the abyss, my true friend would be the one who calls me suddenly, unexpectedly, just to ask me how I'm doing because he/she had been thinking about me. Isn't it a rather dreary image? I don't want to think that it's only at my moment of need that I find my true friends. Friends are bound by love and respect, and these things shouldn't be contingent on whether times are good or bad.
So I watched the sunset this past Monday, watched the sky darken and the stars slowly show their faces as I took a longer walk than usual through my favorite part of suburbia. As the hours passed, a revelation came to me. Or something like that. As I stared into the night, lost in my thoughts and the music running through my headphones, I found myself at the edge of the precipice, staring into the abyss. I know it was the abyss, because although we have yet to find the bottomless pit in the ground, I implore you to find me the person who can stare into the sky at night and not suddenly feel small. The image is cliche, and there isn't much to be done about that, but the sky is the only abyss we can know (or not know. I'm sure there are limits to the Universe, but we're nowhere near finding them, so let this one go, please), the closest possible encounter we can have with the infinite, within the physical realm. The bottomless pit does not fall out below us, but rises above! With this in mind I ask you, have you ever lay on the ground in the country looking up at a blanket of stars and not been struck by how small and petty our earthly problems are?
That moment of realization of our significance in the universe, or rather our insignificance... that's the feeling I'm talking about here. That sinking feeling is the abyss looking into you. The odd thing is that where in social situations a feeling of insignificance is a sign of imminent social suicide, when that feeling comes in such moments as gazing into the sky, the feeling of insignificance becomes a source of peace, insight, humility, and, to a certain extent, sheer joy.
So I ask you: As I stand at the edge of the precipice gazing into the only abyss I have ever known, the abyss gazing likewise into me... are you the friend who calls to me, to ask me how I've been?