Nothing makes sense and that is accurate.
Every once in awhile I need a reminder that, if things feel like they aren’t making sense, this is perfectly accurate.
“We have a complete inventory of the universe, and it makes no sense,” says Sean Carroll (California Institute of Technology cosmologist, as quoted in this article discussing the mystery of dark matter).
Have you ever read about a 22-year-old who has life all figured out? Like entrepreneurs who make their first million at age 19, or Olympic athletes who are like, “yeah, I’ve been pursuing an Olympic pentathlon gold medal since age four”? Not that this is a malaise of only the young. World leaders of all kinds like to make similar claims, not to mention entrepreneurs, stock traders, and anyone who claims to understand bitcoin.
Just when I’m convincing (and calming) myself about the fact that life is ultimately unknowable, someone comes around saying they know it, and I internally start to panic, because SHIT, IS IT??
The unknowable natural cycle
If you, like me, do NOT have life all figured out, let me assure you: this is the natural human cycle.
We all, at some point, think we’ve got it wholly figured out. Be assured, this is an illusion. After this period of insanity, most humans (eventually) sit up and realize, holy shit, I know nothing.* We then search around for meaning, learn some spiffy lil bit ’o knowledge, and think Ah! Okay NOW I’ve got life thoroughly solved!
And thus the cycle continues.
*it’s the ones who don’t eventually sit up that are the ones to really worry about, I think. Was it Socrates who said “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”?
Assurances
I will not give you false assurances such as “Life will be okay”, “Your cooking is excellent” or “Your baby is cute”. These are the dull answers of someone who finds you dull, and I would not offend or underestimate you in this way, my dear friends.
Instead, I will offer you a (short) list of some the inexplicable, incongruous realities of lives—like ours—that make no sense:
We, as humans, are capable of feeling the most soul-crushing of sorrow in one instant, and in the very next enjoying a warm, buttery scone.
The world can be falling apart and we can be whole. And vice-versa.
The ever-expanding Universe does not give a fig about human life, and the Universe is at complete peace with this.
Life will always simultaneously be both the best, and the worst.
Puppies are 100% adorable, hard stop.
