NdukuOutLoud

Rethinking our obsession with human-made meaning.

The meaning? Just the one? For all forms of life?

Isn’t it a bit absurd- even arrogant- that the question immediately assumes we’re talking about human life? As if the universe is a stage built solely for our performance, ignoring the trillion other life forms thriving in the wings. Other life forms that seem to have it much more together than we do.

But we like to think our human experience is the peak of complexity, while there are other, smaller, single- celled organisms like a ciliate. That performs every function a human does- finding food, sensing danger, reproducing- all within one microscopic boundary. An organism that I doubt walks around asking for the meaning of life.

And yet, we’re the “intelligent” ones. Intelligent enough to slap labels on everything, to carve the world into neat little boxes, and to invent machines that make our lives easier- and still somehow be the ones walking around asking what’s the point of it all.

Isn’t it even crazier to demand a manual for a process we don’t even understand? This whole business- breathing, reproducing, laughing, talking- it’s pure madness. We’ve just done it so many times that we’ve mistaken the repetition for normal.

What if there isn’t any meaning to all of it? Would that actually be so bad?

We found ourselves here- don’t aske me how- and because we absolutel abhor a blank space, we started spinning stories. The silence was terrifying, so we fill it with philosophy, religion, and five- year plans. But someday, we won’t be here. Or maybe we’ll evolve into something so entirely different that we wouldn’t even recognize our own ancestors, let alone remember that we spent our entire existence obsessively trying to “solve” the mystery of our own breath.

I know, I know- it’s much more relaxing to believe there’s a script. To think that someone, or something, is in charge and this whole chaotic mess has a purpose. And even if they don’t, we’re so smart that we go around manufacturing our own meaning just to keep the dread at bay.

We build elaborate institutions, careers, levels to climb. We tell ourselves that if we just reach the next rung, it will all make sense and we’ll finally be somebody. Somebody’s whose life has meaning. But the race is a circle. Some get to the end, realize the finish line was a mirage, and start a new race. And for many, it becomes a drain- a life- sucking, soul- crushing loop.

But we look outside. And life goes on. It doesn’t wait for us to figure it out. Doesn’t bother to explain itself. Doesn’t seem to care about the business plan, or the existential crisis. It just keeps breathing.

And perhaps we should stop trying to decode the song and just let ourselves dance.