Humans, as we know today, have existed for about 200,000 years. We were hunters and gatherers for a long time. Following our natural instincts, we never questioned our existence. Gradually, we built civilizations, engaged in agriculture, forging a society. Then came the great thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and many more, who staged the question among us — What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose?

Fast forward 20,000 years to the present, existential crisis is a hot topic. Existential crisis is a state in an individual’s life, where the individual questions their life’s meaning. A person experiencing such a crisis seeks the answer to the question — Why live?

Popular culture today might have posed existentialism as a cool thing, which the young teens pride with, or flaunt their intelligence. But this is not quite right. The true feeling of existentialism is dreadful. It tends to get people chill down their spine, make them feel anxious, and even become suicidal.

But this is not to rant about pop culture, which actually has a lot to rant on. This is about answering the question, Why live? or at least help you find an answer.

The universe is about 13.8 billion years old. Humans have only existed for about 200,000 years. Assuming that you are going to live a 100 years, then it will be just 0.05 percent of the total time humans have spent on Earth yet, which in turn is just 0.0015 percent of the time for which the universe is known to have existed. With this negligible time that you spend alive, is there really a true purpose of you here? Are you going to leave any significant mark on the universe?

Probably not.

But here’s the catch. You don’t have to. Life need not have a meaning. We all are not meant to serve some purpose, or similar. Maybe we exist just for the sake of existence.

Maybe we don’t have any role to play. In fact, the entire human race probably has no role to play in the universal cycle.

Why?

We are in a solar system of a medium-size star, which has several thousands of similar, maybe better, solar systems around it, forming the galaxy we belong in. Our galaxy is further among several thousands of galaxies, which form a galaxy cluster. Several hundreds of such clusters come together to form something called a supercluster of galaxies. And it is known that the universe has about 10 million such superclusters.

Just how insignificant we are relative to the entire universe.

That’s depressing. Let’s make it worse.

We all like to believe that we are here for something more than just existing. We hope to serve a greater purpose.

Let’s say we are serving to something much bigger than us. What could it be? Maybe playing a small role in bringing the universe to the next stage in its lifetime? Maybe to its fate?

This is very unlikely. The universe would have probably done good enough without the human species.

But let’s assume that it is going to be impossible for the universe to move ahead in its cycle without human intervention. Still… our lifetimes aren’t just long enough to experience their own purpose. That makes no sense, to me at least.

Okay.. That’s enough to make you believe that your life is meaningless. At this point, I would categorize the readers into two — (i) ones who think whatever I have written yet is wrong, and their lives do have some meaning (ii) ones who agree that human life has no worth.

The rest of this article is for the latter kind. Others can stop here and continue serving their lives’ purpose.

One thing that I would like to make clear is that I am not saying that your life, in particular, has no worth. It’s just that the entire human race’s life is meaningless. So don’t get suicidal!

If you change your perspective and view life on grounds of the social constructs created by us, then the people contributing to the economy and sustenance of the world, bringing innovations to make life better, might seem to be the ones who are really living meaningful lives. Even from this perspective, it’s not only the big politicians, CEOs, or famous celebrities who have meaningful lives. Everyone is not supposed to be great.

But this perspective has a whole different story to tell.

I am gonna stick in this article to the overall purpose of the human race.

Knowing that we are all doomed, and are meant to pass into oblivion, can be rough. You may start to fear life, more than you fear death. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

It is the meaninglessness of life that you have to embrace.

We have to exist, play our roles — as a child, a student, a parent, a citizen — and pass away.

Nothing matters; and everything does. Things around you won’t matter. But being given the ability to perceive the reality as it is, is a gift that we got for free.

So use it!

Feel the love, the happiness, the sorrow, the pain, the horror. Feel it not to find an end meaning, but just because you can… feel. Death is inevitable, don’t be afraid of it. The only thing permanent here is that everything and everyone are temporary. Life is an opportunity, for you to perceive. Mortality is a virtue, to set us free.

What to do with this life, you ask?

You get to decide the meaning of your life, you get to chose what is important for you. Social construct you live in is just to keep things in order, so that you can spend your time here with ease, without causing troubles to the fellow beings.

All this does not necessarily mean that you lose the desire to do anything. In fact, it means that you can do so many things without thinking about what others think about you! After all, no one will care in the end, because no one will be there in the end!

Live! Not because you have to, but because you can.