I don't know if life is simply a random series of events, or if everything is left up to fate. Maybe predestination dictates the end, but how we get there is up to us.
Or, maybe none of it matters. Maybe our life can be summed up as a group of atoms randomly bumping into one another; we're born, we live, and we die. What happens in the middle is of no real significance- at least compared to the scale of the multitude of planets and galaxies and universes that are out beyond our reach. In that scope, we hold no importance to that which is happening around us. We have no impact on the flow of whatever is out there. We tend to forget that there are different levels- our lives may be important to us, here, now, but it won't always be so.
Being in a city where there is so much history only reaffirms my point. We learn about the big things- Dante lived here, DaVinci worked there, this statue is this many years old, this building was built in.... etc. etc.
But somewhere in Piazza San Marco someone had their heart broken. On Via degli Alfani someone once greeted a friend in passing and at Santa Maria Novella someone saw their mother buried. Things that were once so important in someone's life hold no significance now... so what was the point of it all? It mattered to someone, somewhere, at some time... but eventually, we fade. And then life just goes on without us. We spend our lives searching for the 'big picture' when it's in front of us all along: there is no big picture. Life is just life, we have to deal with what comes and then move on. No amount of critical thinking, reading self-help books and studying new religions is going to change that fact.
We have no control over life, it's going to be there whether we're ready for it or not. The only thing we can control is how we choose to react to things.
So why stress about something that's not going to change the structure of the universe? Getting that C, being rejected for a date, your car breaking down may seem like huge, important, life-changing events now, but in the grand scheme of things they won't matter. That's just life. You deal with the problem and move on, because that's what life is. It's all we can do.
I don't believe that there's a God watching over us. I don't believe that there's a heaven, and I don't believe that there's a hell. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in soul mates.
I do, however, believe in being a good person for your own personal reasons. I don't mean for this blog to sound pessimistic and hopeless, because that's not the point I'm trying to convey at all. Our lives are somewhat significant through their insignificance--- although my life may be inconsequential compared to the scope of the universe, I can still walk down the street and enjoy looking at all the people. I can still find a rose beautiful. I can still appreciate a good song and I can still get that feeling in my heart when I'm about to see someone I care about. Even though my life is a small blip on the radar- for some reason I'm able to feel all of these things- good things. That has to mean something.
Just because we are specks floating somewhere in space doesn't mean that our lives in our world don't serve a purpose to those living them. I have consciousness. I don't know why, I don't know how I was created and I don't know what purpose I'm supposed to serve- if any at all. But what I do know is that my life is significant to me, because I am living it. Just as yours is to you.
And maybe all that we can do is try to be the best person we know how to be. Even if it doesn't matter in the long run, it matters now, because we are living it now. We have the ability to create happiness. Once our lives surpass us our slate is wiped clean in a sense- it won't matter if you smiled at someone on the street, or you let someone go ahead of you in the grocery line, or you made dinner for your neighbor. The things that we did will be gone, in order to make way for new generations, for new lives. Yet we will have the satisfaction of knowing that while we lived, we did the best that we could. That we spread happiness to other people. And even though other people might not recognize the value in the little things, we spread happiness somewhere, to someone. I don't need someone to tell me that my life matters. In that sense I already know that it does.
If anything, that's what makes our lives significant. Perpetuating sanctity & felicity.
No comments:
Post a Comment