The Search for Significance

Everybody desires their existence to be meaningful and their presence to serve a purpose. If you have never experienced an existential crisis before, a simple question "What is your purpose in life?" can induce a truly debilitating feeling. It's the kind of question you try to run from, but it catches you eventually. Lately, I have been pondering the same question, perhaps due to reading Ikigai, the current state of the world or simply a lack of distractions in my life. Whatever the reason, this question catches up to me, often multiple times a day—you see you can run but you just can't hide. I never seem to get a conclusive answer; it's puzzling. Sometimes it's as simple as 'nothing' while other times as complex as 'the grand design'. 

What the Hell Is Even a "Meaning" or "Purpose"?

The idea of finding the meaning or purpose of your existence and then potentially fulfilling the same throughout life seems absurd. Why does life have to be meaningful only with a "meaning" or "purpose"? Couldn't existence itself be considered meaningful as long as you live it according to your values and needs? To insist on a meaning or purpose suggests a need for something superficial, or perhaps an idea being forcefully imposed that without incorporating anything extraordinary, life loses its meaning and value. One is allowed to have an ordinary life, which might seem meaningless to someone else but so much to the one living it—the whole idea of purpose and meaning is distorted. Preachers ask their followers to seek something bigger and devotion to a higher power; all to have a meaning and purposeful life. An important question arises: who decides what's meaningful and of purpose, and what's not?

Do I Even Matter?

Short answer: no. And the long answer? Well, significance is a fairly relative concept, as how much one matters is based on who you ask and the lens through which they see you. That being said, we are largely insignificant beings, yet our brains tend to think of us as the 'main character'. Imagine billions of living souls, all sharing the common thought of being highly significant being. While majority of us believe that, the brain is as much a curse as it is a blessing. If you dwell on your thoughts too much, it can dramatically ruin the quality of your life. That's where techniques like mindfulness were discovered and are vastly used to distant ourselves from the train of thoughts. Our actions and presence do not matter in the large scheme of things; we are but insignificant beings. All our accomplishments are momentary, flickering embers in the infinite darkness of insignificance.

Who Controls What?

I believe the biggest misconception among humanity is the belief that we have control over our lives—at least to some degree. While this may seem true on the surface, it isn't the case when you look at it in depth. From our earliest days of growth and learning in childhood, we're shaped by everything happening around us. From a very small action of a parent to a huge event, all of it shapes us into the person we become in our teenage years and for the rest of our lives. For the most part, we do not choose anything in our childhood, and this, in turn, shapes the choices we make in the later life. Now, would that make our decisions in later life influenced by the events of our childhood? Absolutely. The counterpoint might be that we do learn, as well as unlearn, most of the 'patterns' we acquired during the childhood, and that, in the end, allows us to make our own decisions. While this may seem like our own decision, it has also been influenced by the very first events—our childhood experiences—which, in turn, prompted us to take a different decision, later labeled as our own. And even this decision will be influenced by many factors in the individual's life: family, job, finance—most of which are external elements. Furthermore, we don't even have as much control over our bodies; consider gut bacteria, for example, which are microorganisms, essentially living beings. They influence a lot of things like digestion, metabolism, immune system response, and even brain function. So, how much control do we truly have over our own bodies and lives?

Is Reality Even a Thing?

 Reality is defined as "the way life really is, not the way it may appear to be or how you would like it to be". But what is reality and how much of it do we truly experience? The simple answer, I believe is: There's no such thing as a singular, objective reality and we seldom experience it. To understand this in detail, we have to consider how we portray things and how they're perceived.

We all have a different identity that we try to showcase, and this differs widely across the spectrum of our lives—a different personality for office, for a party, for the weekly book club, and so on. All of the is based on the personality we want to adopt or the identity we wish to have or showcase. While the true self is often hidden somewhere beneath various masquerading masks, is the self you are portraying even a reality of your own being? And isn't your reality, or your understanding of your surroundings fundamentally dependent on your perspective, which varies widely and based on your own inner leanings?

What to Do With Our Insignificant Lives 

Well, for starters, begin living aligned to your values. Some people spend their lives without clear and definitive values and, as a result, struggle to make decisions and life choices that truly align with who they are, which can deprive them of a sense of belonging and meaning. We're often sold big dreams that we usually end up not fulfilling, leading to loss of self-esteem, which further reduces the quality of life. We tend to live others' dreams and lives; only when it's too late do we realize this wasn't the life we wanted to live.

'Do what you love' might sound cliché, as it has been used too much without any specifics on how to even figure out what we love. The simplest way to achieve that is by using a technique mentioned in a famous self help book, Ikigai—the art of achieving flow. Flow is just that feeling you get where you forget all the worries of life and focus purely on the task at hand. It could be anything that appears insignificant, like our beings (pun intended); seriously though, it can be anything as long as it gets you into that feeling of flow. A very easy example would be working out; we're almost always focused on the workout and less on anything else. How do we reach flow? Well, experiment; get out and try new things, especially if it makes you scared. 

Search for Connection 

Meaningful connections, as hard as they may be to find, do give us a sense of importance and a potential way forward. There are people who have influenced my life in many ways; a few I've met, while others I haven't. We all have something to share: a story, an experience or just some advice. However insignificant we might be, we all carry a key that might unlock a possibility for someone else, if not for our own.

Yet, while we spend most of our lives figuring out and trying to prove our own importance, we often fail to give half of that importance to the people in our lives. We expect more, always seeking something in return, where everything we 'give' to someone—love, compassion, care—is conditional, often with an ulterior motive in mind. In other cases, we simply want the same feeling back. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, however, when our act of connection becomes conditional and shallow, it often ends with disappointment and discontentment. Perhaps, it's the state of depravity that is contributing to this expectation, as we've only viewed fellow humans as playing a supporting role in our lives rather than being part of it as a whole.

Finding a Way to Be, Anyway 

I may never truly find the answer for the meaningfulness or significance of being. Sometimes I'll get overwhelmed with it, sometimes I'll be able to distract myself; however, one constant is that this question will keep pursuing me, and I'll continue to try and escape it. In any case, my significance will ultimately be based on how meaningful and purposeful I spend my life, which, in turn, will be rooted in my values and beliefs.