(Note: this is all personal interpretation and the validity of the following statements is up for the reader to decide.)

Why are you doing the things that you’re doing? Is there any inherent reason? Any inherent value? We’re looking for an answer that, when asked ”why?” to, gets something along the lines of “because I feel that way” or “because that’s what I believe is fundamentally true.” In other words, do you have a root justification for daily actions and goals? Is there some unshakeable personal virtue or reason that drives your daily actions? Or perhaps… is there not?

Why even ask such a question?

The fact is, a lot of people don’t know. One reason could be that they aren’t trying hard enough to warrant such a question. If one just “gets by” their day-to-day lives without expending significant amounts of conscious effort, they don’t need to justify what they do - it just happens naturally. [0] But if you make a conscious, deliberate choice to do something that’s difficult and takes a lot of effort and time, your brain will eventually start complaining and pestering like a child. Why are you doing this? What’s the point? I just want to help you conserve energy! Be lazy and have fun, for god’s sake!

And if you don’t have a good enough answer, chances are that you’ll stop doing that action. Or, if you can’t commit to stopping for some reason, you’re only going to do that action half-heartedly. However, if you do happen to find that fundamental reason and fully believe in it, you can then fully commit to what you’re doing. This is indeed desirable, because it means now you can justify applying full throttle and powering through whatever obstacles you come across. It’s not a panacea for progress, but it definitely helps. (In fact, it may be necessary) With a full commitment, you can build companies that change the lives of millions of people, discover life-changing technologies, run 100 miles in the sweltering heat of Death Valley, or lead a full-scale terrorist attack that affirms your beliefs. Everything (good and bad) is within reach. And all because of that fundamental reason that you’ve sought out.

Why does such a reason exist?

If one wants to discover their base reasons (an intrinsic “meaning” for their lives, so to speak), where would they even start? It must exist, right? That’s a great question - where do such strong reasons or fundamental beliefs about your existence come from?

Past experiences? Other people? Traumas? Insecurities? Genetics?

Can one use their past experiences to justify future actions? In fact, is that the only way we can find a reason to do things? What else can we base our judgments on? Self-contrived thoughts? Do those even exist? [1]

Inherently, life has no meaning, so we can’t base it off there. Atoms have no meaning. Dark matter has no meaning. The birth and death of the universe has no meaning. (unless we’re in a simulation or God is real or something). But, yet, human life has meaning. We feel that (some) lives are important. There exist many people who are driven, passionate, and have desires. Where’s this imbalance coming from? How can there be pockets of meaning in a sea of meaninglessness? How can there be these little eddies and swirls of direction and purpose that we can get caught up in, sometimes for life?

Somehow, just as temperature and pressure imbalances in the atmosphere give rise to powerful gusts of wind, there exist disturbances and imbalances in everyday life that give rise to purpose, direction, and meaning. There are external factors that push us to do things or prevent us from doing others. Much like how wind rushes from high to low pressure, we strive for fulfillment and peace - influenced by subtle pressure points stirred up by the actions of others. When zoomed all the way out, though, perhaps everything cancels out - maybe it’s a zero-sum game that way. The yin gets matched with the yang (the highs and lows of every living being on Earth sum to zero), the good with the bad. But zoom all the way back in, and the chaos is real. The meaning is real because we can’t see the whole picture of meaninglessness.

B-but… Why is there chaos in the first place? Why did the universe start off with less entropy than it has now? Who started the fire? [2] Who knows?

Final words

Meaning exists in the chaos of what consists of our very small and narrow-minded lives. If you set your course on life and find a fundamental reason to back it up, you can soar like the wind. Finding that reason is a deliberate choice to make meaning out of chaos and ultimate meaninglessness. A deliberate choice to make reason from insanity. You are still a drop in the ocean, but now you’re being driven with purpose just as surely as raindrops drive themselves into the ocean.

Footnote: It’s also rather interesting how some say we choose to believe what is convenient for us. That could twist the story a bit and make fundamental beliefs really just motivated beliefs.

[0] Credit - my good high school friend.

[1] I think this also raises questions of free will. If we are agents that are only ever influenced by our past, then our lives should be predictable. But IF there’s some internal, independent mechanism in each of us that can spawn unique decisions and choices, perhaps we do have a choice! (Will we make the same decisions given the same starting scenario though? Are we predictably unpredictable?)

[2] We didn’t start the firreee. It was always burnin since the world’s been turnin’