I’ve been having an existential crisis.
And I’m about to be vulnerable on this public platform by describing my existential crisis. If you are a bully and/or a hater and/or get uncomfortable by the implacable tendencies of the mind, respectfully follow the link to this amazing Buzzfeed article instead. And, if you don’t enjoy Twilight, why don’t you exit the browser and go for a walk outside or something?
Okay, so basically…
This particular brain swirl was inspired by the widely disseminated and horrifically truthful TikTok trend that says, “None of this actually matters. We are all just little specks of dust on a floating rock in space.” I am sure most of you have come into contact with this phrase.
This sentiment provides perspective to viewers and aims to reassure and motivate. It’s okay that you are drowning in school work and are entering your fourth year with an unbearably uncertain idea of what you want to do after graduation because we are just little specks of dust floating through space. You can become that marine biologist and/or architect George Costanza because what do you have to lose? We are just little specks of dust floating through space – or whatever your version of this is. It’s all fine because nothing actually matters, so live your life and stop worrying so much.
But the thing is, all of this does matter. It matters because, even though we are on a rock floating in space, the things we do, the things we talk about and the things we aspire to be each day are all essential mechanisms that ensure we live full lives in the constructed realities we were born into. It all matters because everyone around us says it matters.
This is the part I’ve been having trouble with: how the things around us have to matter because everyone else says it does. We spend each day doing things to bring our lives meaning. I recognize the privilege I hold of being able to explore my interests through a post-secondary program. I will always be grateful for the opportunities I have seized and worked for. Even though I am afforded great privilege, sometimes my reality becomes absurd.
Here’s an example. I’m sitting in school in one of my online classes and the prof is talking about something. Then, the plain absurdity of my current situation suddenly seeps in through the corners of my brain without any warning and I’ll be hyper aware of myself as a living, breathing thing with a conscience and soul.
My name is Rachel. I am a human female person. I am 21-years-old. I have hands and legs and arms and feet. My eyes feel wider than normal and my hands suddenly don’t exactly look like my hands, even though they do.
Still in this state, I tune back into my prof’s lecture and they’re saying things like, “you know, it’s so interesting,” or “I find it so fascinating,” and they are still talking about the same something as before. I realize how long we have been talking about this one aspect of this particular thing. Whether it be a marketing class, a journalism class, a random elective, anything. I realize there is so much to say and be said about a particular subject. But, the thing my professor is talking about was established and thought on by many more people before them. The original idea for the thing was discovered at some point in history where another human being was like, “yes, this is what this is,” then for all time following that moment, other people spent their lives talking about this one thing and adding meaning to it.
Which means!
Each thing we talk about could have just as easily never existed as it has existed.
Then the TikTok trend makes more sense. None of this matters because everything around us and how it all works together to form our realities was just constructed by another human being that came before us—it’s all made up.
In those moments, I have a choice. I can either fester in that existentialism or I can accept the reality that everything we know to be true is just made up by another person and jump right back into it. I jump back in and that plain absurdity disappears just as fast as it appeared.
This has been happening a bit more lately. Is it because another school year has started? Is it because I am that person drowning in work, entering fourth year with too many ideas of where to take my career so that I inevitably have no idea? Or could it be the every-looming pressure of the ongoing pandemic and the murky thought of the future?
Whatever it is, I guess it’s reassuring and motivating that nothing matters and it’s all made up. That’s the incentive to just do the thing that actually makes you happy because, what’s the point if you don’t?
Did any of that make sense?