What's the point?

When I was about 12, I remember reading a book called ‘Veronica decides to die’. It was in the corner of our school library shelf, hiding between Chicken soup for the soul and your standard Enid Blyton books – the secret sevens and famous fives of the world. Now this book was about a young woman named Veronica who realises life has nothing more to offer her, she had seen heartbreak, a normal childhood and a generic life, and there was nothing new. Now what was left of her was to grow out of her youth, experience more hardships and live a life with no power to change its path, or the miserable world at large. Realising that there is no more exploration she needs to do, she decides to take her own life, contemplating the least painful way to do so.

Now this was of course a dark setting for a young teen like me to fully comprehend, and I ended up getting bored and not going through with the whole book. Years passed but I couldn’t forget the premise. Was there some truth to her thoughts? Perhaps. But does it mean life is not worth pursuing? In fact, what DOES give life meaning, what makes it worth it? It can be a scary rabbit hole, the pointlessness of it all.

What are we here for?

Tough questions- questions which take a lifetime to resolve, at the end of which, you probably realise, ah there is no point to the question itself. There is only one destination irrespective of the journey. And this realisation can make you feel low, or scared, or worst, just… nothing. Lulled into a freeze state, you find yourself numb to life. You go through the motions and push away all the existential thoughts in your head because where else there is to go? How do you make peace with the concept of life when its end, at least as you know it, is looming over you?

And yet, there are days, days even when I truly see no point to it, I still wake up the next day feeling better, wanting to try again. Weeks and months go by, where work or hobbies have no ulterior point, and yet, I find myself wanting to want things. Craving for wanting fulfilment, for passion, for love, for meaning.

On those ‘good’ days, I reflect on the moments which were beautiful, or ones that meant anything to me, small or big, fleeting, or everlasting, irrespective of the outcome. Has it happened to you that you have had a poor end to a project, or a business, or a relationship, and yet managed to keep the good memories intact? Not in a way that you would want to go back to that stage in life, but in a way that your wonderful memories of those excitement filled days, or great outings, or deep conversations are not marred by all the failures or losses on the other side of it. You find yourself chuckling at a song which you and your ex danced to together, despite how badly things ended. You still find yourself smiling as you cross that street you did everyday together with your teammate, even if you didn’t land the client and hated your job underneath it all.

You don’t feel bitter anymore, your journey counts irrespective of the outcome. There is solace in finding goodness in pain. Human nature, despite being messy, complex, flawed, and essentially screwed up, creates ways to find kindness and love. It longs to feel more, even when it seems impossible to, even when another day seems unbearable and the bed too hard to leave. There is something within us that makes us get up every day, and I don’t mean a purpose necessarily, but the insatiable curiosity and deep-seated belief that there is something today that life has not shown us before that is going to be better than yesterday.

I ended up reading ‘Veronika decides to die’ years later. And I wouldn’t spoil it for you, but Veronika wasn’t entirely right. Well, she wasn’t wrong either, life objectively has no meaning. It can be an uncomfortable truth to digest that inherently our lives are just a small part of the larger universe, that anything we do makes no impact. But we are no objective beings, there is also a perspective that things we do matter, the lives we touch matter, what we feel matters. We can create change for the world through thought, actions, and words. We can create a purpose.

And this purpose doesn’t have to be one that creates a BIG impact to be able to be worthy. What that can create is a binary view on what makes a life worth living. We can spend entire lives feeling ‘not good enough’ if we view a fulfilled life through a single lens. Instead, a question to ask is perhaps what are your values? Where do you find meaning? It could be anything- money, power, family, freedom, servicing a community, self- expression. This is a non-judgment zone. We are all products of our environment. We create the milestones of our lives basis what we need. My friend who has struggled for years to make ends meet now will make sure he is never in a position of poverty. It is what drives every decision of his, how he creates an impact for his family. I, who had the privilege of not worrying about these things, am in no place to tell him that is not valid, or that he should choose an altruistic path instead.

What matters to you will govern what achievement, experience, or object you assign value to, and how much. And this is a life-long process where these values keep shifting. That is the process of living. It is not figuring out everything by the time you hit 30 and then spending decades to just... keep doing it. It is a journey of trial and error, of shaping and reshaping those values because you do not remain the same at 20 and 50.

It can be scary, to know things will not remain the same, that the onus of finding anything worth living for rests on you. To learn the lesson of being okay with not knowing the answers and learning them again, and again. How many times have I had a conversation with a friend about taking charge of my life, of being comfortable with ambiguity, of just going for what I want without care for consequences, or what the outside world might think? Probably a 100. And how many times have I re-visited that same conversation? Probably a 100.

The insanity of life can be almost funny. It amazes me sometimes how much and how little anything can mean. It is just about perspective. Sometimes, a zoom out can help you relax, and a zoom-in can help you care and pour all your passion into things that matter to you. There is a certain beauty to the range of human experiences and that can make life, if not worth living, certainly interesting while we are alive.

We feel and experience and fall and rise and it is in that ridiculously, painfully satisfying journey that we find some semblance of meaning, even when it lasts only a lifetime. And some things are just nice while they last.