Millions of us continue to flee from violence, oppression and famine even today. The world impoverishes itself by spending mammoth resources on the propagation of war, and our leaders in their infinite wisdom employ some of our most brilliant minds solely on developing the tools for the continuation of this futile endeavour.
None of us determine the minutiae of our entrance into the great adventure of life. To whichever tiny group we happen to be born into, we are expected to involuntarily show fervent love and allegiance. We distrust those from other groups, treating them with scorn and contempt. That all these little groups belong to the same species, and to the objective outsider they are virtually identical, makes little difference. We lack a common accord as to what our place in the universe is today. As a species, we do not have a generally agreed upon long-term goal other than, palpably, plain survival. No one really knows what they are doing. Everyone is doing the best they can to find meaning in the brief sigh of life.
Especially when times are hard, we become desperate for encouragement, unreceptive to dissuasion and the notion of sunken hopes. We are much more willing to hear that we’re somehow more special than everything else, despite this notion being unsupported by evidence. And who can blame us? We could never have known beforehand that the facts would be so repeatedly incompatible with the idea that human beings are the axis to all that exists, that the universe was made with us in mind.
But if the universe is infinitely old, and if the big bang, which is speculated to have occurred some fifteen billion years ago, was only the most recent chapter in an unimaginably great series of cosmic births and deaths, then the inquiry into the purpose of its existence seems to be rendered rather meaningless.
About five billion years from now, when our planet has been burnt to a crisp or swallowed by our own sun, there will still be amazing new worlds and civilizations coming into being that will know nothing of the tiny blue dot our primate species once affectionately decided to name ‘Earth.’
What alternatives does this cruel existence leave us with then? To pretend certainty in an uncertain world by means of adopting a comforting belief system, no matter how immensely opposed to reality it may be? Religions fulfil this wish, telling man that he is the point, the heart and the final purpose of the whole system. And to achieve bliss, he simply needs to shrug off the Atlantean burden of doubt that plagues his mind. The greatest advantage that religion has is our own solipsism.
It is the very reason why people who don’t really believe in astrology will nevertheless take a quick peek once in a while to see what’s happening to Sagittarius and if it says, “Might be a good time for a flutter on the stock exchange,” they often pause to think, “Hang on, the planets don’t really move to determine my portfolio. But maybe, you know … It’s not completely impossible it could all be about me.”
However, if we resort to this, it becomes a fundamental dishonesty and treachery to one’s intellectual integrity. It would be feeble of us to believe something simply because we feel it’s encouraging and not necessarily because we feel it is true. The trapdoor beneath our feet now swings open, and we find ourselves freefalling through a great darkness, and no one arrives to extend a helping hand. Given so ruthless a reality, of course we’re tempted to shut our eyes and pretend that we’re safe at home. If it takes a bit of myth to get us through this endless night, who among us cannot sympathize and understand?
Everyone longs to be here for a purpose, even though, despite our self-deceptions, none is manifest. The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then, as Carl Sagan once remarked, determined only by our own wisdom and courage.
Born with a deep curiosity and a bursting imagination, we were restricted only by the mountains, the oceans and the sky. The open road softly beckoned us to worlds still greater and glorious than we had ever imagined. While clashes with the majority consensus may be unsettling and test our moral fiber, it is better by far to accept the hard truth than to continue the pursuit of a comforting fable. If we seek a purpose in the cosmos, let it be the unending search for knowledge and wisdom, the longing for love, and a compassionate generosity which bring us closer to one another. Our belief in humanity must be unshakeable, our will overwhelming. And when will and belief combine so ardently, then not even the heavens will deny us.
At the end of every test life has thrown at him yet, man has wondered if he has reached the capacity of his ability. But in response, he has always looked to the stars, and realized that that capacity may very well be limitless. A new world won’t simply fall down from the sky; instead it has to grow within the people. If freedom and democracy are the code of our civics, then surely the code of our humanity must be the devoted service to that unwritten commandment that ensures for our children a life that is more nurturing and compassionate than the one we all must part ways from one day. Let us then work assiduously so that they will one day awaken in the world we dream of here and now.
Aniruddh “Rudy” Fatehpuria, a Contributing Writer for the Voice, can be reached for comment at AFatehpuria19@wooster.edu.