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It does not take a great deal to recognise the absurdity of the situation in which we humans regard “life” as the currency of our very existence and yet cannot define it adequately.

Being alive is not synonymous with being conscious; plants and microorganisms are very much alive, as is an unconscious coma patient. In fact, a quick google search will expose man’s inability to express what exactly it means to live. The definition of living is being alive and the definition of being alive is indeed, living. Nice one.

And so we are condemned to wonder, condemned to keep wandering aimlessly at night and deep in the forests of our thoughts, searching for answers to satiate our human curiosity. And, we term this wonder; philosophy, as if it is something we can study and perhaps, if we work hard enough, solve. We’re plagued with the hunger for enlightenment, as though there is something just at the tips of our fingers, slightly out of our grasp and if we manage to catch it, we might finally be at peace.

The search for purpose is ongoing, not just throughout our own lives but throughout the history of mankind. Existential philosopher Sartre wrote up the notion of ‘existence before essence’; that is, existing before having a purpose. He believed that we were born without any predisposed mission or value and we as humans had to find it, create it, even. Humans give life meaning because inherently, life is void of it. And maybe that’s true, perhaps meaning is found the moment it is lost.

Of my 22 years of life and counting, I have found that most truths about life are similarly paradoxical. I am at my most content when I am not wondering. Yet, I still go out in my thoughts, I still wander down rabbit holes which I know lead to despair. I bask in the futility of life, knowing that the roads of question meander endlessly and arrive precisely nowhere. I still wonder and I will continue to wander for my every tomorrow.

I stare into the cosmos, does the cosmos stare back?

Life continues regardless; time runs on and conforming to what is expected of us becomes banal and passive white noise to the real questions we are facing. Such simple, absurd questions of principle. What is life? Heck, why is life?

It is easy to feel alone gazing up at that bottomless black night sky which stretches out beyond imagination. The thought that something could be infinite isn’t really something we can comprehend; all the space in the Universe, and more. All the time in the Universe, and more.

Why?

Perhaps the answers are out there, beyond galactic borders and inside the realms of parallel universes which differ by just a minute, by just a single word choice and by everything we know and love of this world too. All the questions that torment us as the sun falls in our skies and we, as a human collective, ponder upon our existence.

It is a great tragedy that man lives his entire life without ever knowing why.

Sometimes, I do my best to rationalise the entire thing- living, life, being alive. I take a step back. And then another.

Everything seems so comical from afar, our species growing on this blue and green rock with uniform houses and little vehicles we fill up at petrol stations and lights that tell which vehicles to go and stop. We really have built a funny little world for ourselves.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I feel as though I am a part of something. I feel one part of the human race on this voyage into the future. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing here, none of us do. None of us have the slightest clue but we carry on, regardless. We continue on our mission which may seem mudane and futile at first, but it’s not. We’re part of this movement, this journey that is the evolution of humanity. We have so many questions and given enough time, we might solve them, if we work hard enough.

We have learnt to use fire and we have created technology and communication devices. We can predict weather and broadcast it- hell, we’ve been to the moon and back! We survived the plague and learnt about our bodies so we could heal ourselves. We put a rover on mars which is programmed to sing happy birthday to itself annually, out there in the middle of nothingness.

We are part of something. Something big and we will, given enough time, venture out into the rest of the solar system in the pursuit of answers because that is the nature of mankind. And, perhaps we will find them some day, out there. The hunt is on, the game is afoot and each and everyone of us is contributing. The survival of mankind depends on mothers to rear our young, engineers to fix our vehicles, scientists to find cures, teachers to pass down knowledge and friends to keep us sane.

Humanity depends on us, you and I. A cog, all-be-it a small one, in a project so monumental we have to step back twice to look at it.

Your existence alone will leave footprints on this earth, adding to a montage of all the footprints of humans who have been before us, who have moulded and worn the earth into what it is today; what it will be tomorrow.

So before you go to sleep at night, wondering what the point of it all is, remember that your time will come and it will go. And maybe your name will be forgotten by the people who walk here in 200 years time, or less. But on behalf of those who walked these lands 200 years back, 2000 years back and more, continue what was started.

This journey into the unknown is far-reaching, and your part in it won’t last long. But the world will still turn when you’re not here, the days will still pass and people will still live. However you choose to pass your time during your stay, you have played a pivotal role in history.

I stare into the cosmos, and the cosmos stares back.

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