Neither here nor there, before nor after
Studying (lies! I don’t actually study. I really just gloss-over.) existentialism and well…my existence.
Things are not so easy so let’s start from whence I came. As I tend to get bored and even more so, tend to have trouble sleeping, I started thumbing through my hardcover copy of Stephen Hawking’s The Universe in a Nutshell. (And don’t be impressed, because I understand very little of it.) It’s a great sleep-aide: two pages and I’m unbelievably drowsy. That boils down to each page being the equivalent of 1-benadryl. Anyway, I became stuck on Time.
As I extrapolate my understanding from the pictures in the book I come to the understanding that time is not necessarily linear. There is no infinite line that leads us to the beginning nor is there an infinite line that points us to the end. Suppose time is a sphere. What does this mean? Everything! If time were/is/becomes a sphere then we–or rather I–will live again. And thus, I’ve complicatedly obfuscated my existence and at the same time, planted courage in my heart as I tick-tock towards death and nonexistence.
On a long enough timeline ambition means nothing. Actually, everything means nothing. So what if Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire to date? What will anyone or anything know of his dust centuries from now. Even Einstein, one of the most renowned thinkers, will become a historical footnote in the next few centuries. Basically, I can contribute nothing… (and maybe that is why man is selfish?)
Yet we have tremendous influence. The protagonist in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has my exact dilemma. His father (a father of Baba proportions, really) shows him how his existence does matter. If he were to move a grain of sand in the desert than he has altered the future.
Where am I going with this? (I don’t really know but my writing has become so bad and out-of-practice that yes, I use rhetorical questions for direction.) I aim to figure It out, be it God, Purpose, Meaning, Happiness, Enlightenment, or Community (my best answer to date).
The meaning of life is the meaning of life. And since I often despair that I won’t find answers in this lifetime, I’m consoled by the idea that I may get another attempt if time loops again. (But will those thought’s be different? The beginnings of another blog…)
Categorized as RANTS