Taking it all in !!!

On your holiday trips, esp if you are traveling by road, you make a random stop - at an eating joint for a quick snack, a small teashop for a cup of coffee or even a house to ask for directions. You get what you want and walk out. Its when I say goodbye to these people that it hits me - I may never see them again. It then hits me that I have shared 5 minutes of my life with them, and thats all I know of them. I dismiss them and probably will never think of them again. But then it dawns on me that they too have lived an entire life like me. The walls of the shop, the plants outside the house have seen so many like me who come to talk to them. Why do we always think that only places of historical significance have witnessed events? The amount of significance the incidents that make history have to the rest of the world is the same that these people's lives have to them. And WHY WHY WHY am I not able to drink it all in? Why cant I be a part of everything that happens in every place at every time? Why is it that we feel some places or people or events are more important than others? I shudder when I think that I will die without seeing every nook and corner of this one world. And whats more painful is that my visiting any place is important only to me. We are all specks of dust in this mighty mighty universe. Can we ever take it all in? Should we even dare to desire such a thing and dedicate our lives to it? Even if we do, what difference does it make to anyone else?