Written by: Sakshyam Karna - 26013, Grade IX
Posted on: 30 January, 2023
Human existence is scary and confusing. A few thousand years ago, we became conscious and found ourselves in a strange place which was filled with other beings. We could eat some; some could eat us. There was liquid stuff we could drink and there were things we could use to make more things. The tiny daytime sky had a tiny yellow ball that could warm our skin and the night sky was filled with beautiful lights. This place was obviously made for us. We were home. This made things much less scary and confusing. But the older we got, the more we learned about ourselves and the world. We learned that the twinkling stars are not shining for us, they just are. We learned that we are not at the center of what we now call the universe, and that it is much older than we thought. We learned that we are made up of tiny little dead things, which make up bigger things that are not dead, for some reason, and that we are just a temporary stage in a history going back over a billion years. We learned, in awe, that we live on a moist speck of dust revolving around a medium size star, in a quiet region of an average galaxy, which is part of a galaxy group that we will never leave. And this group is only one of the thousands that, together, make up a galaxy supercluster. But even our supercluster is one of the thousands that makes up what we call the observable universe. The universe might be a million times bigger, but we will never know. We could throw words around like two hundred million galaxies or trillions of stars or bazillions of planets, but all of these numbers mean nothing. Our brain cannot comprehend these concepts. The universe is too big. There is too much of it. But size is not the troubling concept we have to deal with. It's time, or, more precisely, the time we have. If you are lucky enough to live up to one hundred, then you have five thousand two hundred weeks at your disposal. If you are 25 right now. Then you have three thousand nine hundred weeks left. If you are going to die at seventy, then there are two thousand three hundred forty weeks left. This is a lot of time but at the same time not really. After that your biological processes will start to break down, and the dynamic pattern that is you will stop being dynamic. It will dissolve until there is no you left. Some believe that there is a part of us that we cannot see or measure, but we have no way to find out, so this life might be it and we might end up dead forever. This is less scary than it sounds though. If you do not remember the 13.75 billion years that went by before you, then the trillions of trillions that will come after will pass in no time after you are one. Close your eyes and count to one. That is how long forever feels. And as far as we know, in the end, the universe itself will die and nothing will change. Reading this might induce existential dread in some people. So you can look at it from a different point of view, an unscientific, subjective point of view. The optimistic nihilism. So what is it? To summarize, it is very unlikely that trillions of stars have been made for us. In a way, it feels like the cruelest joke in existence has been played on us. We became self aware only to realize that this story is not about us. While it is great to know about the electrons and the powerhouse of the cell. Science does not do a lot to make these things less depressing. Okay, but so what? You only get one shot at life, which is scary, but it also sets you free. If the universe ends in heat death, every humiliation that you suffer in your life will be forgotten. Every mistake you made will not matter in the end, every bad thing you did will be voided. If our life is all we experience , then experience is the only thing that matters. If the universe has no principles, the only principles relevant are the ones we decide on. If the universe has no purpose, we get to dictate what it’s purpose is. Humans will most certainly cease to exist at some point, but before we do we get to explore ourselves and the world around us. We get to experience feelings. We get to experience food, books, sunrise nad being with each other. The fact that we are even able to experience all this is really kind of incredible. It's easy to think of ourselves as separated from everything, but it is not true. We are as of the universe as a neutron star or a black hole or a nebula. Even better, actually, we are its thinking and feeling part: the center organ of the universe. We are truly free in a universe sized playground. So it would be foolish to spend our time worrying and feeling guilty over something that we won't be able to change. But in the end it is up to us to how we live our lives. The better we make others' lives, the more we live in their memories but that is it.
Source: https://lingualeo.com/bo/jungle/in-a-nutshell-optimistic-nihilism-538374
