A few days ago, I found myself contemplating the meaning of life, a question often posed by postmodernists. But I didn’t approach it from that angle initially. The thought had been simmering in my mind, sparked by the everyday routine of driving to the office and back. Each day, I see people going about their lives—day in and day out, repeating the same pattern. Living close to a highway, I often pass by apartments and imagine the lives of the people inside. It fascinates me how we only interact with a select few in life while remaining unaware of the vast majority beyond our limited worldview. You could veer off into a tangent, wondering if it's all a simulation—but that's a thought for another day. For now, it’s enough to say that life and people often seem to "spawn" into our awareness at specific moments, which makes most of the population irrelevant to our existence.
To illustrate this, consider the famous analogy of the ant and its dimensions. In physics, when someone asks, “We say there are more than three dimensions, but what does that mean? How can we imagine it?” the analogy goes like this: imagine looking at a pipe with an ant walking on top of it. From your perspective, you see the pipe and the ant moving along it. But what does the ant see? At its scale, the surface of the pipe might appear uneven, with huge ups and downs, creating a completely different experience than what you perceive. The ant operates within a different set of dimensions and realities. This is what struck me one day as I watched an ant on the wall. It was simply doing "ant stuff"—following its programming, with no awareness beyond that. So, if I were to kill the ant, it would be meaningless. We might feel pity for the "poor little thing" that lived a seemingly pointless life, but if we reflect on our existence, the same could be said for us.
What if we died at this very moment? If you consider the broader scope of life, it would be equally meaningless. We’ve already eliminated almost everyone else as irrelevant to our reality. You might argue that our close loved ones would be affected by our death, but remember, we’re viewing this from our limited human perspective. If we are like ants—unaware of most of the world around us—then our existence might not mean anything at all.
Once we truly grasp this idea, we can easily fall into nihilism. The question naturally arises: if everything is pointless, why do we do what we do? Why do we go to work? Why do we earn money? These are valid questions, and they can lead to a sense of despair. We’re just creatures living, reproducing, and then ceasing to exist. In the grand scheme of things, success, money, and relationships are all meaningless. We fail to realize that, at our core, we are animals—just as Nietzsche pointed out. We might think we are superior because we can think, but where does that thinking lead? Nowhere. Even this essay I’m writing, in the meta sense, means nothing.
So, should we abandon everything and live on the streets? Honestly, I don’t know. We’re still programmed, like animals, to follow certain instincts. But acknowledging the absurdity of it all doesn’t have to lead to misery. What I’ve begun to practice is embracing the lack of inherent meaning. If nothing matters, there’s no need to stress about being ultra-successful, and no reason to chase after goals that, in the end, don’t matter. While this may not bring happiness directly, it can at least quiet the nagging thoughts of “I need to do this” or “I have to achieve that.” Am I fully able to live by this? No, not yet, but I’m trying. Our minds have been deeply conditioned by premodern and modern ideals of success, money, and lifestyle, and the real challenge is calming those impulses. But at the end of the day, remember—it’s all pointless.
Just kidding... or maybe not. Whether life has an objective meaning is something for you to decide. But remember, the act of asking the question is far more important than finding the answer.