The meaning in our insignificant lives
Well, this is my first post here. So, might not be very polished. However, in this recent rise in the mental health crisis across the globe and this persistent air of hopelessness, I just remembered something from my school life and I felt it’s worth sharing. It’s a very simple idea, probably just a simple realization, but that changed the course of my life. So, sharing it here.
It was the first lecture in Physics, 11th standard. A very natural question came up:
“ We’re all here to study Physics. But what exactly is Physics all about, or rather, any science for that matter?”
“ Study of nature we call it”, the teacher said, “ Quite accurate, but doesn’t really tell much. I’ll try to elaborate a bit.”
He continues…
“ Imagine you just wake up inside a stadium. You have no clue how you landed there. You don’t even know what’s outside. All you can see is a playground and some sort of game going on you’ve never heard of. Well, you can simply move out of the stadium, and forget about the game. But then, remember, you don’t get to re-enter, and you don’t even know what’s outside anyways. Just sitting there is not making you feel any better. You’re bored!
So you decide to give it a shot. You start observing whatever you can. You see people running from one place to another. You don’t understand. You try to look for more. Oh, you see a ball there. Someone is kicking that ball. Suddenly you realize more people concentrated around the person in the possession of the ball. You think to yourself, maybe the person is an important figure and everyone wants to be around him, but then you see someone else take the ball and now people start running around him. You suddenly realize, maybe it’s not the person, it’s really the ball they’re after. You keep making such small observations thinking there’s a plan to it, trying to figure out the plan.
Maybe there is……. maybe not.
You’ll probably never know for sure. Well, that means probably anything you do doesn’t make any difference, right? To the game, yeah. The players don’t care what you think of the game or even if you’re there or not.
But then, to say the least, you’re at least enjoying the game now! ;)
The ground is the world and what you’re doing is Physics ” — Savin Sindhu
I didn’t really understand the depth of it back then. But there are some people who’ve been very important to my understanding of this statement. They’ve made me feel significant despite my insignificance in the large scheme of things on this pale blue dot called the world.
This’ll give you some context: https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g
So, coming back to the title of this article. Why am I sharing this? Where do I find meaning in this post?
Here’s what I resonate with now:
“We all are gonna die someday. Does that mean life is meaningless? Was there even any meaning in our being born? Would you say that of our fallen comrades? Their lives… Were they meaningless? No, they weren’t! It’s us who gives meaning to our comrade’s lives! The brave fallen! The anguished fallen! The ones who will remember them are us, the living!
We die trusting the living who follow to find meaning in our lives!”
— Erwin Smith
This statement above sounds like it’s meant for soldiers or war heroes. Well, to be fair, it WAS said in that context. But, here’s my argument. Meaning doesn’t have to come from the prospect of saving the world, saving humanity, etc. It could be as simple as supporting the education of one child who’d otherwise be deprived of that life. Or it could just be a person spending time with terminal patients to make them smile and laugh as their end draws near. Well, the world doesn’t explicitly talk about these heroes, but well, to that child, or that terminal patient, no one is probably more heroic than this otherwise ordinary person. And if you take that definition, you’ll realize that these heroes are all around us. They don’t wear cloaks or come in shining armor. They look as ordinary as you and me. They probably go through the same self-doubt that you and I go through 365 days a year. Some of these heroes are still alive in the biological sense, others stay alive through our memories. Let’s not lose them.
Let’s preserve the extraordinary stories of OUR everyday heroes. It’s up to us to give meaning to these lives, and hopefully, someday, someone will find meaning in our existence.
If this idea resonates with you, we’d be happy to connect: https://myorchard.app/
