Discovering Purpose Beyond Cosmic Indifference
The universe is 14 Billion years old. That is 14 followed by nine zeroes if you were wondering. And it is massive. Mathematically, we can say how large it is, but we cannot comprehend it, at least I can’t. The observable universe is around 93 Billion Light years. It basically means, it would take light 93 Billion years to reach from one end of the universe to the other. For reference, it takes light only around 8 minutes to reach the earth from the sun.
Our home, the earth was formed around 4.5 billion years ago, almost 9 billion years after the universe was formed. Water was formed 4.3 billion years ago, microbial life 3.5 billion years ago, land animals 300 million years ago and humans 300 thousand years ago. The universe was already there before we came, and it will continue to be there in its grandeur long after we perish.
“ Carl Sagan on Pale Blue Dot”
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
That is exactly what we are.
Now all this background will eventually set us up for one question. Well not exactly one, but questions of this particular nature: Why? What is the point of all this? Why are we here?
Technically we are all just collection of atoms, star dust if you please, floating around. Once there were stars that exploded and the matter in the stars formed planets, and land and water and us and everything there is. We are insignificant, a fleeting anomaly in an unfeeling universe. The cosmos stretches endlessly, stars indifferent to our mere existence. Within this, riches and rags, fights and troubles and love and desires play, ultimately leading nowhere. There seems no purpose, no grand design – just the hollow echo of our existence against the backdrop of cosmic indifference.
There are fundamentally two school of thoughts that attempts to explain the futility of life. One is straight forward and tells us that this life of ours is nothing but pointless suffering of randomness and there is no explicit meaning while the other gets around the same point with an essential twist at the end. It says that even if this life of ours is a pointless suffering, finding a purpose will lead to meaning and help bear this lifelong suffering. The former one is called Nihilism, and the latter Existentialism.
I personally do not think and would not like to believe that our life has no purpose or we are not able to give a meaning to our life, or anything we do will eventually do no good. I outright reject Nihilism for what its worth. On the other hand, I am a firm believer that as long as we are here and living, we have to strive to bear some responsibility for the good, have a hierarchy of values, create a purpose for life and live to achieve it. Only then we can give meaning to our lives.
“Is there something that you could do whose value is so high that the fact of your existence is mortal, vulnerable and prone to inescapable suffering, you would find them not only acceptable but desirable? You might say that you would even pay the price.”
This is a excerpt from one of Jordan Peterson’s podcasts (Listen to this guy, says some useful stuff). The existentialist principle of life is so precisely put together in these three lines. Until and unless we don’t work towards something of value (to us and to other around us), or we do not carry that load of responsibility on our shoulder voluntarily, we will always struggle to find meaning in our lives. And that will only lead to darker days. Nihilism will always lead to darker days.
So the question now remains, how do we move ahead with this clinging feeling that universe is vast and when our existence is just a fleeting anomaly in this abyss.
In this abyss, there’s a canvas for you to paint your own meaning. The universe might not care, but you can choose to. The connections you make, the experiences you gather, the passions you pursue, the responsibilities you bear – they’re the brushstrokes that can add significance to this existential void. Meaning might be a personal creation, but it’s a powerful one. It’s your rebellion against the void, your way of making a mark, no matter how small, you can make a mark in this fabric of reality. Just as you feel a swell of wonder when you look up at the night sky, remember that the universe is equally vast within you. The intricate dance of cells and molecules, the symphony of thoughts and emotions, all interconnected and bound by the same threads that weave the cosmos. So, let yourself feel both the smallness and the greatness, for you are a reflection of the universe itself – a beautiful paradox in this tapestry of life.
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