Do you ever wonder how life got so complicated? Do you
ever wish for simplicity in life, just like it was when we were kids? By the
way kids today have a pretty complicated life themselves so, just think it
over, but you get the point, right? I sometimes think about my purpose in life;
how the universe is perhaps trying to teach me, train me for a better life
ahead. Do you think about it too? Do you also try to understand the meaning of
it all? If yes, you’re complicating life, my friend.
The day you were born, life started to become
complicated. You were told you were born on a particular day of the particular
month of the particular year. Who made these days, months and years? You were
told that the building you were born in is called hospital. You were told that
you came out of a tiny hole called a vagina. You were told that your name is
this or that. You were told that going to school, respecting elders, loving one
another, following etiquette, etc. is expected and is good. You were told
everything. Do you remember questioning a lot of these rules as a kid? But then
you stopped, because you started to make sense of it, rather, you started to
get the ‘meaning’ behind all this. If there were things that couldn’t be
explained with logic, you assigned the meaning of supernatural or religion to
it. But everything had to have a meaning. There’s a little voice in the back of
our heads that just can’t stop creating meaning out of everything. Even right
now. As you’re reading this article, your little voice is asking, ‘Where is
this article going?’, ‘Is the writer going to make any sense at any point at
all?’, ‘What does all this mean?’, ‘What am I thinking now?’, etc.
Doesn’t your mind start racing if your girlfriend/boyfriend
doesn’t call you when he/she is supposed to? Some of us are relieved but some
are having crazy thoughts too, right? We are trying to ‘connect the dots’ like
Sherlock and trying to arrive at a logical decision. Did you know that the word
decision has its roots in the Latin word cide
which means to kill off? So when we make a decision, we’re actually killing off
all other options, all other views, all other possibilities. If one day your
boss starts to treat you nicely, what does your mind say? It may say a lot of
stuff but it can’t stop assigning a meaning to it. And that’s where you get all
of life’s complications.
Quantum physics has proved that everything is an
illusion. In many experiments it’s been found that an electron is not present
where it is present, but where the scientists look for it, i.e., they saw the
electron wherever they looked. On a macro level, it means that life doesn’t
exhibit what’s true; it exhibits what we believe to be true. We see what we
want to see, we hear what we want to hear, we feel what we want to feel and we
live what we want to live. Take a second, let it sink. You would now realise
that life isn’t controlling you, you’re controlling life, I mean the little
voice in your head is. Terminator: The Judgment Day put it quite rightly, ‘NO
FATE’ (well said James Cameron, well said). Do you see that life is what you
make of it? It is what you create. You will always see the electron where you
want to see it.
So what happens if the little voice in your head is no
longer controlling you? I say no longer controlling because it can never shut
up, unless you’re dead. So, what happens if you stop making stories, stop
assuming stuff, stop trying to create meaning out of everything? What happens
if you stop looking for the electron? What would you see? Think for a minute
before reading further, because if you get this, you’re going to be a changed
person. So, what do you see if you stop looking for the electron which appears
to be wherever you try to look for it? Nothing! You see nothing. On a macro
level, if you stop creating meaning out of everything, life becomes simple and
simple and simple unless it comes down to Nothing. And that’s what life is, Nothing.
Without self created meaning, assumptions and guesses, it indeed is nothing.
Life is empty and meaningless. It sounds sad but it is actually true and the
most joyous realisations of my life. Now that I know that life is empty and
meaningless, I have all the space in the universe to create whatever I want to
create. Of course I will listen to the little voice in my head and create
meaning but I would no longer be bound by it. I would always be aware that in
the end, there truly is Nothing that exists. Therefore, you are what you want
to be. The meaning of life that you had been searching for all your life is yet
to be created and guess who is the creator, YOU!
