Relevance & Meaning

"Never question the relevance of truth, but always question the truth of relevance."

- Craig Bruce

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Disclaimer- What you're about to read consists of mainly my opinion, and I urge you to not assume that this is the absolute truth. This is just my take on the subject, and you are advised to give it a read, and then a thought. An unbiased, open-minded thought. So, don't blindly believe in the contents of this post, and don't outrightly dismiss them either.

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Have you ever asked yourself, "What would happen to the world if I died right this second?"

For starters, your family would be devastated, and overcome with grief. Then your friends, boss, colleagues, neighbours, regular passers-by, relatives, etc. would all become aware of your absence, and your life would be concluded with a short send-off, also known as a funeral. While the immediate impact of your passing on loved ones is undeniable, let's delve deeper into a more profound inquiry:

"Would your absence from this moment alter the course of the universe?"

It's a question that transcends the confines of our daily Earthly perspective. Beyond the realms of familial grief lies the vast expanse where the significance of individual lives fades into insignificance. But, before we unravel these mysteries, let's first clarify our terminologies:

The solar system: A celestial arrangement centered around a star, encompassing planets, asteroids, and comets bound by gravitational forces.

The galaxy: A colossal gathering of stars, dust, and cosmic phenomena, including our own Milky Way.

The universe: The entirety of existence, comprising galaxies, stars, planets, and all known entities.

Now, back to our question... Consider this: your passing wouldn't halt the Earth's rotation, and the Sun will still rise and set every 24 hours. The cosmic group of galaxies would continue, unaffected, indifferent to the passing of one life on Earth.

This question has been debated since the very beginning of science and philosophy. Scientific viewpoints conclude that our lives are but insignificant specks in the grand tapestry of the universe. According to this view, the relevance and meaning that our lives hold is close to nil, with reference to the universe.

For example, you failing a test won't alter the course of the moon, or, you getting injured will not affect the luminiscence of the stars around our planets. Similarly, us having arguments, or getting into fights, breaking ties, it quite literally will not affect the rate at which our universe is growing. Our individual lives have no impact on the universe. 

So, what, do we just stop trying? If the scientific viewpoint claims we can't affect the universe, or our galaxy, does that mean we should stop trying, or even dreaming of goal achievements altogether? 

Absolutely not. Science fails to consider a very important aspect in this whole equation...

Your world. Your world is everything that matters to you, everything you'd be concerned about. And while the universe won't budge, your actions will certainly affect your world. Yourself, your loved ones, and countless others that hold any relevance to you. And it's worth noting that what I mentioned above is just a viewpoint. You get to decide if it's congruent with how you think.

Some may be consoled by the scientific view's 'existential cosmic insignificance', but some may ask,

"So that's it? You wrote this article just to make us feel, irrelevant? We're meaningless specks of insignificance?"

No. The intention behind writing this article was not to diminish your worth, but to broaden your perspective. In the grand expanse of the cosmos, we are but stardust, quite literally, and borderline irrelevant. This also makes our seemingly 'world-ending' hassles objectively, irrelevant. As an extension, one would think our lives seem meaningless, and yet, within the realms of human connection, our impact is immeasurable.

Philosophically speaking, our lives hold meaning in terms of what we mean to the lives around us. How we make others feel, how we treat others, how we are remembered, etc. This viewpoint suddenly fills our lives with limitless potential, and great power over our own relevance and meaning.

So, while the universe may not mourn our passing, we are still individual stories, and our worth could be derived from the contents of these stories. We cannot live reckless lives, just because the universe sees us as insignificant. The universe wouldn't care much if you were to vanish, but people here on Earth would still remember you. And acknowledging that, sure, our lives hold limitless meaning to each other, and we are very much relevant. You will almost surely be remembered by the people you've interacted with. You will undoubtedly affect, your world.

It's up to you if you want to be remembered and hated, or be remembered and celebrated.

The real purpose behind writing this article was to try and enhance your perspective. The next time you fail to reach your academic or corporate goals, you commit an apparent blunder, you are offended by a friend or relative, or you don't get your expected likes or views on a social media post, sit back, relax, and close your eyes for a minute. These occurences aren't worth feeling sad or depressed over, and there's no point in remaining gloomy. To those, especially, who are susceptible to taking drastic self-destructive actions, please don't. These events aren't happening to you, rather, they're happening for you. See these events, instead, as plot twists in your story, rather than torn pages.

I stress again, this doesn't mean you can throw your hands up and not try at all. I mean to say that you must try, always, and if your attempts 'fail', you should pursue something different, instead of giving up entirely.

Don't hurt yourself, the ones around you, or hold grudges and break ties over such happenings. These apparent setbacks are quite literally, as we've deduced, meaningless and irrelevant in the grand expanse of the universe.

In other words, it's not the end of the world.  

- Armaan Kothare

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Hey readers! I apologise for the long break, and I cannot promise regular posts in the future. I can, however, guarantee that I will try to write and publish future posts as and when my free time prevails. Which should, hopefully, be soon enough.

I hope this article made you think, even a little bit, about the subject matter, and I hope it brought into perspective just how insignificant some of our problems are. In the heat of the moment, these problems may feel like the end of the world, but one should occasionally practise looking at them from the third-person perspective. As Horace Walpole aptly said, 

"A bystander often sees more of the game than those who play."

My intention, in writing this piece, wasn't to belittle your efforts, but rather make you ponder over whether it's such a big deal to 'fail'. This was my attempt to change the way you acknowledge these 'failures', while also evaluating their 'actual' impact, and I hope I was somewhat successful in doing so. I meant to emphasize the essence of this quote by Socrates,

"Falling down is not a failure. Failure comes when you stay where you have fallen."

I'd love to know what you thought of my take on the subject, and I urge you to share your views as well. Feel free to write your suggestions, thoughts, or share all sorts of feedback in the comments section, and I'll see you in the next post!

Thanks for reading!!