There is no why

This universe - our universe - is 13.8 billion years old. And it is massive. It is so massive that the human brain which is programmed to deal with everyday objects cannot even hope to imagine how big it is. It is so big that no matter how long we live, no matter how advanced our technologies, we will never be able to see more than a very very tiny fraction of the universe.

Our sun, our own star that is the source of all life - while being huge and important to us, is insignificantly tiny compared to the aforementioned size of the universe. The sun is in what we could call the outskirts of the milky way galaxy, in the edge of a spiral arm, orbiting a supermassive blackhole along with what we could only assume as billions of more stars, bigger and brighter than our sun. And there are billions of more galaxies, each having its own horde of a hundred billion suns.

Our sun isn’t special. But it is old. Being a second (or possibly third) generation star, the sun is 4.6 billion years old, give or take. The earth is slightly younger at 4.56 billion years, and spent most of its baby years as a firepit, the entire surface like the insides of volcanoes. It did cool down eventually, enough for the lava to solidify into solid ground, enough for the vapours to condense into oceans. Enough for us.

3 billion years ago, it is speculated that the first life appeared on earth. Something that could be barely called life. It took a painstakingly long time for the first cells to be formed, and more for them to combine into multicellular life. And it took more time and an enormous amount of horrible death for natural selection to work out larger organisms.

Dinosaurs first arrived on the scene 250 million years ago. They remained the dominant animals on the planet for around 200 million years, and went extinct in a very weird and colossal display of fireworks. Smaller mammals, things like rats, were the only animals left - partly because the dinosaurs tended to eat anything bigger than that, and partly because rats could burrow in and hibernate through the fireworks. 

And it took more time for the mammals to evolve into bigger animals and replace the dinosaurs as the dominant creatures. We, humans, evolved 200 thousand years ago. We are incredibly young compared to dinosaurs, who are in turn incredibly young compared to everything else. We did many things, things that no other creature had the potential to do. Our written and oral records start sometime 5000 years back. And here we are.

An average human lives for 70 years. Compared to the 5000 years of written history, 70 years is small. Compared to our evolutionary history of 200 thousand years, 70 is tiny. Compared to the age of the sun, 70 years is a blink of an eye. Compared to the 13.8 billion years of the existence of the universe, 70 is not so different from zero.

If the entire life of the universe was shrunk into one year, the sun formed sometime in August. Dinosaurs came into existence on Christmas day. Humans evolved on December 31st, 4 minutes before midnight.

Would it be logical to think that the universe would have assigned a purpose to a particular species of primates, in a tiny planet orbiting an insignificant dim star on the edge of a not-so-special galaxy, who only have existed for 4 minutes, for its one year?

When you are making new year resolutions, do you plan what you will do for 4 minutes on a random day? It is such an insignificantly small time that you wouldn’t care about wasting it. For all you care, a year could be 4 minutes shorter and it wouldn’t make a single difference.

In the same way, we do not make a difference in the universe. The universe does not care that or if we exist, and it most definitely does not have a purpose for us. Everyone you know, everyone who has ever existed, every great and terrible thing we have done, has only existed in this tiny blue green rock that is not even a speck of dust in the grand scale of things. 

We do not matter. We as in all of us. The ones before us, and the ones after. In another 5 billion years our sun will run out of hydrogen and swallow Mercury and Venus, and scorch earth into being uninhabitable. Even if we survive ourselves, we will not survive that. In another 100 years, nobody would remember you and me. In another billion years, there wouldn’t be any of us left to remember anything. And then, after all we have said and done, we wouldn’t exist, and the universe would still carry on, as if we never existed. Because for all it cares, we might as well not have.

Does that depress you? Does that make you feel like everything is pointless? If nothing matters, why are we doing all this, then? Why do we work hard? Why do we have desires and dreams? Why do we even try? Why do we love, why do we live?

Because there is no why. 

There is no reason for any of this. There is no meaning or purpose or an end goal to any of this - to any of us.

In this thought many find crisis and the loss of hope. But I think what we should rather find is freedom - true freedom. In this grand scheme of nihility, it is you and I who are here, against all probability. You and I and everyone else, intelligent and passionate human beings on this planet that is almost perfect for our survival. Intelligent enough to ask these questions and realise we don’t matter. And passionate enough to see that even then, life is worth living. 

What we find in this realisation is that since we do not have a set meaning or purpose, we have the liberty to choose our own purpose. We are the ones giving our lives meaning. We don’t need the universe to do that for us. We have the freedom to dream, and try to make the dream come true. If it does, you are happy. The ones you love are happy. You made a difference not to the universe, but to yourself, and the ones with you. And if the dream doesn’t come true, well, it doesn’t matter. It was not a divine purpose, it was the dream you had for yourself. You can always dream again, dream something new, and start over. Again, and again. And again.

Suddenly, mistakes are not the worst things you can make. Failure is not as big a deal as you once thought it was. The realisation that you and your actions are insignificant, gives you the courage to try new things, to make mistakes and to fail. And to try again. Because no matter how big you mess up, it is not really going to change anything. It is not the end of the world. And you can always start over.

The only real error you can commit is not realising how temporary it all is, how fragile and futile our existence, how beautiful and inspiring this short time we have can be. 

If nothing matters, why are we doing all this, then? Why do we work hard? Why do we have desires and dreams? Why do we even try? Why do we love, why do we live? Well, we do that because we can. We are here, and we can do things, so we do them. We live, laugh, cry and step on the moon because we can. And it feels good. Because the universe might not care about your success or your dreams or the love you have for your dog or that feeling you get when you see your friend smile, but you care. And they care. The people you love care that you are happy, even if the galaxies and stars don’t.

Trying and laughing and dreaming and loving and living is the glorious act of rebellion from tiny insignificant creatures towards a cold and indifferent universe. We don’t need the universe to care. We have each other. We are not special to the universe, but we are special. To someone, somewhere. To a parent or a child or a lover or a friend or a teacher from third grade or a stranger you met on the train or to a dog or a cat you fed on the street. To them, we are special. Someone has had their life made ever so slightly better because of you and me. Someone has missed you and me, smiled or laughed or cried for you and me.

And maybe, just maybe, that is all the purpose we need for life.

Mozhi, March 2022