I've spent a lot of time thinking about meaning. What it is, what it should be, what we make of it. You'd think after all the time I've spent on this, I'd have some answer—some big revelation to share. But here's the thing: even thinking about meaning doesn't mean anything. It's like standing in the middle of a field, staring at the horizon, waiting for something to make sense. But the horizon never comes closer. It just stays out there, unreachable, mocking you with its distance.
And why bother thinking about it? Really, what does it matter? To question meaning, to doubt it, is just as pointless as accepting it. It's all just a loop, isn't it? You sit and stew in the idea that life is meaningless, and then you realize—hey, wait a minute—thinking about it at all is just as meaningless. It's a paradox, a trap that you walk into, and the only way out is to stop trying to escape. There's no point in asking, "What's the meaning of life?" because the act of asking is just a self-perpetuating cycle that leads nowhere.
Isn't that strange? We spend so much of our lives looking for meaning, but in the end, it doesn't matter if we find it. It doesn't matter if we understand it. The search itself is a distraction, a way to fill up the empty spaces in our heads, a way to keep us from facing the raw fact that none of it matters. Life, death, pain, pleasure, love, loss—it's all just the same pointless dance, over and over again. And the more we try to define it, the more we try to carve meaning out of it, the further we get from understanding that there's nothing to understand.
We're all just floating on this river of existence, carried along by the current, and no matter how hard we paddle, no matter how much we fight it, we're still going to end up in the same place: nowhere. The river doesn't care. The current doesn't care. We can scream, we can cry, we can thrash about all we want, but it doesn't change the direction. We're all just headed toward the same black hole, and the question isn't whether we'll get there, but how long we'll stay afloat before we're sucked into it.
Isn't it funny how we convince ourselves that we're different from the others? That we're special in some way? We think that our lives matter more than anyone else's. We dress it up in different ways—purpose, legacy, love—but when you strip away the pretty wrapping, it's all the same. Just empty packages, waiting to be discarded. And one day, that'll be it. The package will be empty. The meaning we've wrapped around ourselves will be gone. All the things we thought we had—our status, our careers, our friends, our love—will fade away. And all that will be left is the quiet hum of existence, carrying us toward the inevitable. What did we leave behind? Does it even matter?
And yet, we keep asking the question. We keep grasping at the illusion of meaning, like children clutching at the shadows of things they'll never really understand. The more we question, the more we realize: it's all just noise. It's just the sound of us trying to make sense of something that doesn't need to make sense.
So, let's look at it this way. If nothing has meaning, and thinking about it doesn't lead anywhere, then why do we keep doing it? Why are we so desperate to find answers, when the only real answer is that there isn't one? It's like looking at the stars and hoping one will fall from the sky just for you. You can stare at the heavens until your eyes go blind, but the stars won't change. The only thing that changes is your perception of them.
You could spend your entire life obsessed with the question, "Why are we here?" But what are you really asking? You're not asking for an answer. You're asking for relief from the discomfort of knowing that there isn't one. You want a break from the silence, the abyss, the blackness that surrounds us all. But no matter how long you stare into it, the abyss will never answer. It will just stare back at you, unblinking, indifferent. And the more you look into it, the more you realize: the abyss is you.
This is the trap we fall into. The trap of believing that meaning is out there, somewhere. The trap of thinking that if we just dig deep enough, if we just ask enough questions, we'll find the key to unlock it all. But the key doesn't exist. There is no answer. There's only the emptiness of knowing that we'll never know, and the sweet, unrelenting release that comes with accepting it.
At the end of the day, the only truth is this: it doesn't matter if you know. It doesn't matter if you understand. You will never find the answer. And that's the most honest thing anyone can say. All the searching, all the questioning, all the trying to make sense of it—all of it is pointless. But, strangely, that's also what makes it all so beautiful. Because in the absence of meaning, in the silence of it all, there's freedom. There's freedom to let go, to stop struggling, to stop pretending. There's freedom to simply exist, and maybe, just maybe, that's all we ever needed.