Not only on Saturday, when we celebrate Mother Tongue Day, but throughout the entire week leading up to it, the Estonian language — which is, of course, the most beautiful language in the world — and with it Estonianness, which is, of course, the most dignified national feeling in the world, and Estonia as a land, which is, of course, the place that offers the most happiness and joy in the world, receive more attention than usual. This is somewhat complicated, however, because we speak and think about the Estonian language, Estonianness and Estonia continuously anyway, whether a holiday is approaching or not.

And indeed we must constantly deal with the language, the nation and the land, interpret them and, when necessary, reinterpret them. The yolk of our existence, so to speak, must be continually rediscovered by cracking open a tough shell.

Of course, we already know all this. We know that the Estonian language is the most beautiful in the world, Estonianness the most important and our land the most beautiful. But that is not enough — all of it must somehow be explained and sold to the rest of the world, because our most important existential question remains: what does the elephant think of us?

Thanks to constant hard work, Estonia stands at the top of many rankings. We can be proud that PISA test results show Estonian children are very smart and can likewise take joy in the fact that only a few countries have a higher value-added tax than we do — but with even more effort we might yet reach the very top of that ranking as well.

Yet despite all these and many other success stories, a suspicion still gnaws that Estonia and Estonians are not quite as important and special as we would like and deserve to be

Since the season of visions, manifestos and anti-manifestos has once again arrived, one vision that could give us the hope and vitality we so desperately need would be a mindset that might be called estocentrism.

Estocentrism, in short, means declaring Estonia the center of the world. In other words, everything that happens anywhere is actually in Estonia's interest and always in a positive sense — because we have carried negative interpretations in our pockets for centuries already and that's quite enough.

We ourselves have interpreted Estonianness plenty by now; the time has come for the rest of the world to start doing it and taking it into account.

For example, when a sudden flash of inspiration strikes U.S. President Donald Trump, before taking action he ought to pause for a moment and consider: I wonder how this affects Estonia. If it affects Estonia positively, go ahead and do it; if negatively, leave it alone. In fact, I believe he may already have done this at the start of the current Iran war when he arrived at the far-reaching conclusion that the conflict might lead the Estonian government to discuss canceling planned increases in excise duties on gasoline and diesel fuel, heating oils, natural gas and electricity — something Estonians would certainly welcome.

If all large and small countries compiled a list of pros and cons from Estonia's point of view before every important and even unimportant decision, the world would surely become more stable. Thus the doctrine "What does the elephant think of us?" could be replaced as the backbone of our future narratives with the goal: "Let's make the elephant think about us." The elephant — that is, the rest of the world — should feel a persistent pulse in the back of its mind, a desire for Estonians to think well of it. This way of thinking would be adopted not out of fear — because, let's be honest, apart from ourselves we scare no one — but because in the end it benefits everyone.

The promotion of an estocentric worldview should begin above all at home and once we ourselves start thinking that everything revolves around Estonia, the rest of the world will surely follow. Replacing the United Nations Charter with Valdur Mikita's book "The Art of Listening to a Chanterelle" ("Kukeseene kuulamise kunst") would then only be a matter of time.

The first sign of how Estonia positively influences all of humanity will appear already this week, because our Mother Tongue Day is a public holiday throughout the world, one that should make people on every continent think: those Estonians really do have good ideas and a beautiful language and we should do everything we can to make sure things always go very well for them.

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