why do we do anything at all?
dear stranger,
as much as we hate to admit it, our perception of reality is nothing more than the signals our brains receive.
light. sound. touch. memory. interpretation.
everything we know is filtered through us.
in a sense, the world we experience exists only in our heads.
whatever reality is in its rawest form, we may never be able to reach it.
and perhaps that is why existence can feel so strange.
we are here, but we do not know why.
we live inside a universe we did not choose, in bodies we did not design, moving toward an ending we cannot fully understand.
we cannot even comprehend nothingness, let alone explain why there is something instead.
we laugh.
we cry.
we fall in love.
we build lives around people, places, and dreams.
and somewhere beneath all of it, there is a quiet awareness that one day, everything we know will fall silent.
as the days pass, our ending draws closer.
at first, it feels impossibly far away.
then one day, we begin to feel mr. grim walking somewhere behind us.
not close enough to see.
just close enough to hear.
and suddenly, time becomes visible.
there is only so much of it.
so what are we supposed to do with it?
education?
career?
love?
you tell me.
we spend our lives doing things with other people.
we laugh together. eat together. travel together. sleep beside one another.
why?
perhaps because being seen makes existence feel less unbearable.
perhaps because, deep down, we know that no one can ever fully enter another person’s mind.
no one can feel exactly what we feel.
no one can live for us.
no one can die for us.
in that sense, we are alone.
always.
when you ask people why they do what they do, they will probably say,
“well bro, i love what i’m doing.”
but ask them why they love anything at all, and they may laugh.
“you think too much bro. chill out.”
maybe they are right.
or maybe we avoid the question because we know there is no final answer waiting for us.
why do we have goals, dreams, and aspirations?
we spend so much time asking what we want that we rarely ask why we want anything at all.
sometimes, we become so consumed by something—
or someone—
that it begins to possess us.
we want to achieve.
to succeed.
to become someone.
to prove that our life has weight.
but weight to whom?
and when we fail to become the person we imagined, it can feel as though the entire story was a lie.
as though everything has become meaningless.
but what does it mean to matter?
to be remembered?
even memory decays.
names disappear.
photographs fade.
cities change.
languages die.
and even if, by some miracle, your name survives for centuries,
those are still only letters.
not your voice.
not your laugh.
not the way you looked at someone you loved.
not you.
so perhaps the fact that nothing lasts is not proof that nothing matters.
perhaps permanence was never the requirement.
a song does not become meaningless because it ends.
a sunset is not worthless because darkness follows.
a conversation does not vanish simply because the room becomes quiet.
and love does not become unreal because two people eventually lose each other.
maybe a moment does not need to last forever to have been true.
maybe meaning is not something hidden inside the universe, waiting for us to discover it.
maybe meaning is something we do.
something we give.
something we create for one another while we are here.
perhaps life is not about finding a final answer.
perhaps it is simply about participating.
doing what feels worth doing.
giving yourself fully to it.
and releasing your claim over what happens next.
that is what the stoics were trying to say, right?
control your actions.
not the outcome.
choose carefully what deserves your time.
and while you are here, try not to make another person’s existence heavier than it already is.
everyone is carrying something invisible.
everyone is fighting thoughts you will never hear.
so be gentle when you can.
the world is already difficult enough.
as cliché as it may sound, the beauty of life may be inseparable from the fact that it ends.
each moment matters because it arrives only once.
it comes.
it stays briefly.
and then it leaves.
just like people do.
just like love does.
we do not fill our days with joy because we have defeated death.
we do it because joy is here now.
we love because another human being, for a brief and impossible moment, allows us to feel less separate from the universe.
perhaps we are alone in the sense that no one can live our life for us.
but we are not alone in the living.
we share meals.
silences.
jokes that make no sense to anyone else.
we witness one another.
and maybe that is enough.
so enjoy the ride.
it may not be smooth.
it may not take you where you expected.
sometimes, it may feel like it is going nowhere at all.
but hey,
it moves.
do not treasure life as though every second is a race against time.
that turns living into another form of fear.
instead, notice what is here.
the warmth of someone’s hand.
the sound of rain against a window.
the strange comfort of being understood.
the version of yourself that only exists around certain people.
and when your time finally comes, when you return to whatever silence existed before your first memory,
perhaps peace will not come from having solved existence.
perhaps it will come from knowing that you were here.
that you paid attention.
that you felt joy.
that you suffered.
that you tried.
that you loved people while they were still within reach.
and that, for a while, you allowed yourself to be changed by being alive.
good night, stranger.
you may be only one small life inside this impossibly large universe.
but small does not mean meaningless.
you were here.
you felt.
you loved.
and for one brief moment in eternity, the universe experienced itself through you.
that is not nothing.
your move.
—ace