I am Sangarshanan and its November 21, 2020 (I’ve always wanted to say that to my future self)
This year has been weird, I had so many plans for this year cause 2019 was really amazing for me. I graduated college, got my first job, talked at my first conference, went on my first date and made some really cool friends along the way. But then 2020 happened and all those plans were quickly snapped away by submicroscopic Thanos “you know who” but its ok though and I feel so lucky to be in a comfortable place to bitch about it and write shit like this cause a lot of people are struggling to even survive these truly shitty times. I have been working from home for the past 9 months and have had too much time to myself and that is never good. My brain is not best friends with me and goes down some very scary rabbit holes without my consent.
It is freaking crazy that I had the ability to choose how my life is gonna turn out for the foreseeable future when I was 16, this was 2014 the year I had to choose my major in college. I know my younger self, that kid is dumb as fuck and I would not trust him with a banana let alone my whole life, luckily I had my dad around and I believed that my dad knew everything, he always knew what to do which I realized much later was a total gimmick but more on that later. When I was a kid I wanted to get into astrophysics or genetic engineering, it was a culmination of hours of binging amazing TV shows like Cosmos, Into the Universe and a whole bunch of Youtube videos. My dad used tell me that I can do whatever I want and he was just there to give me all the information I needed to make that decision myself. I remember him pointing out that pursuing pure sciences (Physics or biology) would meant that I would mostly have to take up the research route and study several years to get a PhD without a good paycheck and if my research does not blow up I might have to turn to teaching towards the latter half of my career and that made it sorta unappealing for the kid me. I wanted to do cool shit like Richard Feynman, Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse Tyson. I did not want to take the risk (typical) and ended up choosing engineering. I don’t regret it though, I love being an engineer I still learn cool new shit every day and it manages to keep me on my toes and of course there is money and stability. More recently I have started to wonder, what next ?
I am done with school, I’ve got my undergraduate degree and have a job so now what ?
I am now fully responsible for my next pursuit and frankly I don’t know what to pursue, I am also scared shitless about the prospect of not having anything to pursue
Do I just float through this soup of continuum writing code that will be rendered obsolete by time ?
I talked to my parents and realized that they don’t have shit figured out either, they too have simply just floated through the time soup to get where they are right now. They have just been in the soup longer than me so they understand it a little better than me. God I hate soup, Have soup everyone ! Beloved by prisoners and homeless people all over the world, it will definitely burn the tip of your tongue rendering the rest of the meal tasteless !
Sorry about the soup rant, but for real why would you willingly drink soup if you are not sick
The Universe has existed long before me and it will continue to exist till the end of time, maybe one day all life will cease to exist and there will be absolute nothingness forever. Either way everything that has ever existed will one day be rendered meaningless and the cycle will continue forever
That is a pretty dreadful thought, if I start believing that there is no purpose to all this and that my existence is meaningless, I will go crazy. I will definitely start killing off people who left me on read cause their existence does not matter anyway right ? What stops the purge from happening ?
A lot of people in this world including my mom have given up control of this “Purpose” and “Existence” bullshit to a higher power, Faith is a very comforting thought and I fully understand why people live and die with faith. When you believe that everything happens for a reason and there is an all powerful governing authority watching over you then things become super easy. You live to please the authority and accept your tasks as purpose from the said authority. You are happy cause you know you will be rewarded in the end, Well you don’t know for sure but you believe in that thought and human beliefs when really strong can be unbreakable even when it is defied by logic.
I like to think that this is also how the world runs today, there is always an all powerful governing authority that takes care of all your needs (really ? that’s debatable) in exchange for prayer which is also kinda like tax I guess.
Maybe you wanna be the cool anarchist and you boycott the authority, you ridicule and shame those who believe in the authority to become the eDgiEsT kid in the block. Hell yeah, social points !!!
Or maybe you stop caring and realise that you are free
When you are free of the weight of your purpose and the meaning of your existence, You are free to do whatever the hell makes you happy and if someone doesn’t like it then fuck em.
Maybe I am right about the universe and nothing really matters but I don’t think I am truly free, There are still consequences to my actions and I affect the lives of the living beings I meet and try my best to improve the lives of those I care about, I continue doing things that make me happy and stick around until I am consumed forever by the void, I carry more importance in the universe because we are a part of the universe that is not only self aware and intelligent but can also artificially create intelligence. I am happy and so are the people I love, that will the only thing that matters to me.
I am ok with there being no purpose or meaning to life, I am not sure if I will every discover my true calling but if we really floating through time in an open world simulation then I am gonna keep doing things that makes me happy and hopefully everyone around me happy too cause the time is running out and I just wanna keep vibing bro …