Previously: The seventh
I don’t like happy endings. I don’t like sad endings. I don’t like endings!
I feel terrible when I am at the last few pages of a book or in the last few episodes of a series, especially those whose characters I can relate to or whose stories I wish I could have lived. Close to the end I have to face the fact it’s all fiction, the product of someone else’s mind, that the characters and their stories will forever end with a period or with the credits and everything will vanish — OK, there might be sequels, but at that moment it is an end nevertheless — And when I finally finish the story, if feels like death.
That’s probably one of the main reasons I don’t kill myself. It’s true that many times I want my story to finish, many times I want to get to the end already, but the problem is that the very idea of an end is something that I despise! I don’t want stories to end, I want to know what happens next, and next, and next — I want them to go on forever!
On the other hand, I can perfectly see that life is meaningless. If you are a good or bad person, rich or poor, smart or stupid, happy or unhappy; if you live for 10, 20, 40, 80 years, whatever, it all disappears, it all ends, just like the story of a book — it may have some importance for those who are still alive, but their memories of you is not really you, and well, they will disappear too anyway…
But I realized something: it’s exactly by being meaningless that life allows itself to be worth living. If it doesn’t matter what you do, and if it doesn’t matter if you live or not, any decision you take, to live or to die, is equally reasonable. For instance, you may decide to die exactly because you know life is meaningless and there is no point in doing anything — fine, that’s totally reasonable and understandable, and I just won’t say “rest in peace” because it is not a rest, it is the end of your existence — or you may decide to live simply because you want to see the story: you have been given body, mind, conscience, senses, and you’ve been equipped with these crazy little things called emotions that make living such a crazy experience — meaningless like fiction, but yet quite interesting for our species.
We are free to create purposes for life. The lack of meaning in it doesn’t imply that we all should simply rush to death, the same way we don’t need to ignore fiction just because it is not real. The chance we are given to live is meaningless indeed, but we are allowed to experience all kinds of things with our body and mind, especially emotions. Meaningless pleasure, meaningless pain, meaningless joy, meaningless sadness — meaningless, but real; meaningless, but we feel.
Hanging around to live this story doesn’t give life a meaning, but it is a good enough reason for not rushing to the inevitable last page of our lives.
One important thing that follows from all this is that life will only be worth for you if you are living it the way you want, not the way others expect you to live. If you live it according to someone else’s will, you’re not living your story, you’re just being a supporting character or an extra on somebody else’s story. You shouldn’t let it happen. What’s the point of living a meaningless life if you can’t at least live it according to your own will? You could even argue that it makes no difference, as life lacks real meaning and purpose, but what about your feelings? Your emotions? They are real, and as long as you live, they will mean everything to you.
Life is meaningless, living is not.
— Ultimately, that’s why I didn’t jump from the bridge three years ago. That’s also why I didn’t kill myself after my two last failed attempts to succeed in life. And that’s how I finally got the courage for a last attempt at life, a radical attempt to give my story a chance of an ending that at least is a happy one…
4 comments
Great post
good post. i agree with you on this one. i’ve come to believe that life is meaningless, and that we do make our own purpose. i used to believe that we were all here for a reason, but that’s b-s, because, many of us are by mere accident. meaning, our parents did not intend on having us, we just happened.
Lots to think about here. Good writing.
In trying to sort out the “whys” of being alive, I keep coming back to the lack of instructions. We are just here, matured sperm/egg combinations, wandering around trying to figure things out, while the planet orbits an ordinary star, in an ordinary spiral arm of an ordinary galaxy, floating in a pool of countless similar galaxies in a sea of black space that apparently has no limits. We wait for a message from its builder, a post-it note of cosmic spiritual significance indicating our relevance and importance, but ultimately, maybe we were just put here to provide carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, or urine for the enrichment of our soil. Our huge egos demand validation, so the stories begin. What grand plans and ideations we impose upon our existence, when in reality, we’re all just guessing. Why would the creator find us special, so special among the components of the universe as to warrant special instructions and reassurances that our lives mean something grand, that we are here for a purpose, and then fail to provide details? World religions as these detailed instructions? Ok. Sure. As a practicing (now recovering) Catholic and born again christian for too many years, I fail to see how the man-made fairy tales we devised to explain our origin, purpose and destiny contain a shred of truth, but that’s a whole other post.
Yeah. We’re just here, because a sperm fertilized an egg, and nine months later, oxygen was introduced. What happens between that point and the cessation of the heart beat is up to the owner. Noone else cares.
Being aware of life’s insignificance is like being aware you are in the Matrix, and everyday you are given two choices: take the blue pill and ignore the reality to live according the Matrix’s expectations; or take the red pill, accept and embrace life’s insignificance, and live according to your own expectations.
Thanks for the comments — and my apologies if you haven’t watched Matrix.