Nocturne #36 – What’s the Point, Then?
Suspended in infinite space, facing inevitable erasure – does any struggle truly matter? We don't have the answers. Perhaps the only response is defiance: to live fiercely, create, fight as if it has meaning... because what if the very act creates the meaning?
What’s the point of anything, really? Everything in this world is temporary. We are born, we grow up, we try to become something, achieve something, we struggle, suffer, rejoice, get tired, get disappointed… And then? Then there’s nothing. We simply vanish. Sometimes I think it’s all just a pointless waste of time, fate’s mocking joke playing with our minds. The richest person on the planet will die exactly like the poorest. Death simply nullifies all our dreams, all our efforts, all our feelings. As if we never even existed. Yes, we might leave behind our name, our creations, a trace that someone else might benefit from, but what good is that to us? If I disappear and fall into eternal sleep, what does it matter to me at all? What’s the point of everything? Yeah, sounds selfish, right? But still, why do I need it?! Shouldn’t I just stop caring about everything?
Fine, I won’t do anything. I’ll sit in a warm armchair and watch Netflix, indulge in conformism, won’t protest dictatorship, won’t get angry about anything. I’ll pass the time in endless waiting, for the days, months, years to go by, until I finally die…
But maybe I’m wrong?
Maybe this game is bigger than I imagine? Maybe every breath we take is part of something whose significance we haven’t yet understood? Life is a process without an end, because we only see an end if we perceive life solely as a biological phenomenon. But we are beyond that, aren’t we? How can we not perceive this circumstance, this surreal picture, this absurd madhouse as a masterpiece of art and not be interested in it? How can all this be meaningless?!
Let’s imagine a moment, and create a zoom-out in our minds. An imaginary camera slowly moves away from a grain of sugar, then sees it on a human hand, a room appears, we go out the window and ascend, from where we already notice cities fragmented by highways, then continents. It’s as if everything shrinks to a single starting point. Look, now we see the whole Earth, this tiny blue dot in boundless space. We go further – passing the solar system, sailing to neighboring stars, then leaving the Milky Way and getting lost at unimaginable speed in clusters of galaxies. The observable universe is infinitely vast, and yet, we know that beyond it lie many more worlds we can’t even conceive of. No, really, have you thought about where we are suspended? Why are we here? How did we end up in such a vast and limitless space, where our existence seems to mean absolutely nothing? Is all this just so I can simply be born, live, and finally disappear? Seriously?
When I smile, when I listen to music and walk the streets, when sunlight caresses my eyes, when I touch someone and feel their warmth – doesn’t life truly exist in these moments? Then why do I feel like I belong to something significant? Why do I feel that even one second is worth experiencing the pleasure of existence, even if complete emptiness lies beyond? Maybe that’s precisely the point? Maybe everything we do leaves an important trace that we cannot see here and now? Maybe death isn’t the end, but a gateway to a larger process we are not yet ready for?
And if so, then I must live in such a way that my every breath, every step, every moment is significant. I must live so that in the end, when I look back, I don’t feel as though I merely passed the time, as though I merely was. I don’t want to merely be. I want to be a fire that illuminates, even if just for a second, even if just in one person’s life.
Maybe this struggle isn’t futile, but the greatest reward we’ve ever been given? Maybe when I struggle, I create history, I create the world around me, I create myself? And if it turns out in the end that everything had meaning, then I will walk this path with pride, exhaustively, full of love for life.
We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know who we are, but we know exactly this – we must live as if this day is the last, and at the same time, as if eternity lies ahead. We must constantly grow, seek, discover. Become curious amateur scientists who always ask questions, who are never satisfied with what they already know.
We must sing, paint, write, protest, fight, play, dance, laugh, and cry as if it all matters – because it does! And when death eventually comes for us, let’s meet it proudly, with a smile, so that we have an answer: Yes, I existed! Yes, it was all worth it! Aaaand…. And… and then let’s observe…