Thank God for Death
I clearly remember like it was yesterday, when I realized for the first time that Death exists, and I was scared. And this fear was not like your usual fear where you are more anxious than you are fearful and where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel even if it's a teeny tiny bit, oh no. This is real fear, where you cannot for the life of you foresee any other outcome but the direst, where you realize that you truly are alone and from which, no one, NO ONE can save you. A fear so dark that it envelops all the light around you. I do not know if you have ever experienced anything like this - But I did, and it paralysed me, I was 12 at the time.
Anyway, see the thing is that life in itself has no meaning, you were not put here to accomplish some grand purpose that is part of some grand design that will help the universe fulfil some grand destiny. Your body is the result of physical reactions at the quantum and classical levels that later on become chemical reactions between molecules (still underpinned by physics) that later on become biological reactions between cells (still underpinned by physics). It is suspiciously precise that the laws of physics are the way they are, and maybe we indeed are living in a simulation and because of the rules of the simulation we “exist”. If the ground rules (laws of physics) were even slightly different, we would not “exist”.
Whatever it might be, just like scientists studying an ant colony rarely care about the feelings of the ants, it is likely that our creator (if there is one) too does not care about us. This may annoy some; for me to say that God (the creator) does not really care about them. But then again, I could be wrong.
At this point I start to get depressed, because if there is no intrinsic meaning to life and we here for the briefest moment on the cosmic timeline, then what is the point of it all?
Come to the rescue, optimistic nihilism.
Optimistic Nihilism derives from the nihilistic notion of fundamental meaningless life.
But unlike nihilism that is depressing, optimistic nihilism is liberating. Acknowledging the lack of meaning and purpose of life gives YOU the freedom and power to decide the meaning of your life the way you want. It can range from a decent happy life to a life determined to decoding the universe. It could be anything.
Optimistic nihilism gives you the liberty to choose what you want to do with your life without the superficial boundaries of fundamental purpose.
It is like riding the bicycle of life, knowing that the road ends at an inevitable lethal fall, knowing that riding it on has no fundamental reason but you ride on, you ride on the road to enjoy the journey, to look around you and just feel like you’re the product of million of years of complexity, it’s like looking at the trees around you and saying, “This is nice, I like it”
So, what is your purpose? That is an answer only you have, and you can make it anything that you want.
Who would have thought that it’d be Death that’d give us a reason to live?
Anyway, see the thing is that life in itself has no meaning, you were not put here to accomplish some grand purpose that is part of some grand design that will help the universe fulfil some grand destiny. Your body is the result of physical reactions at the quantum and classical levels that later on become chemical reactions between molecules (still underpinned by physics) that later on become biological reactions between cells (still underpinned by physics). It is suspiciously precise that the laws of physics are the way they are, and maybe we indeed are living in a simulation and because of the rules of the simulation we “exist”. If the ground rules (laws of physics) were even slightly different, we would not “exist”.
Whatever it might be, just like scientists studying an ant colony rarely care about the feelings of the ants, it is likely that our creator (if there is one) too does not care about us. This may annoy some; for me to say that God (the creator) does not really care about them. But then again, I could be wrong.
At this point I start to get depressed, because if there is no intrinsic meaning to life and we here for the briefest moment on the cosmic timeline, then what is the point of it all?
Come to the rescue, optimistic nihilism.
Optimistic Nihilism derives from the nihilistic notion of fundamental meaningless life.
But unlike nihilism that is depressing, optimistic nihilism is liberating. Acknowledging the lack of meaning and purpose of life gives YOU the freedom and power to decide the meaning of your life the way you want. It can range from a decent happy life to a life determined to decoding the universe. It could be anything.
Optimistic nihilism gives you the liberty to choose what you want to do with your life without the superficial boundaries of fundamental purpose.
It is like riding the bicycle of life, knowing that the road ends at an inevitable lethal fall, knowing that riding it on has no fundamental reason but you ride on, you ride on the road to enjoy the journey, to look around you and just feel like you’re the product of million of years of complexity, it’s like looking at the trees around you and saying, “This is nice, I like it”
So, what is your purpose? That is an answer only you have, and you can make it anything that you want.
Who would have thought that it’d be Death that’d give us a reason to live?
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