I no longer chase certain endings

Before we take action, we often want to understand the meaning behind it.

The meaning of studying. The meaning of reading. The meaning of travelling.

Even in everyday life, we keep asking what life itself is supposed to mean.

It is as though we must first find an answer and confirm that something is important and worthwhile before we are willing to begin.

But is it really so important to find a definite meaning?

I once read a passage in Woody Allen and Philosophy: “Life has no inherent meaning, because there are no absolute or objectively existing values in the universe. This is simply the nature of the universe. Nothing is permanent; everything passes away. Nothing can last forever, not even great works of literature or mighty empires.”

When we look out across the vastness of the universe, it is true that nothing is eternal.

Yesterday, I watched a video podcast featuring Lu Yu and Jiang Sida, in which they also spoke about eternity and fate.

Lu Yu said that nothing in the world lasts forever, including relationships.

She asked Jiang Sida: if you already knew that the ending of a relationship was predetermined, would you still give yourself to it completely?

Jiang Sida said that if he knew from the beginning that a relationship was destined to have no future, he probably would not be able to invest one hundred per cent of himself in it.

That thought made him sad.

Perhaps life is much the same.

Every one of us is moving towards the same ending. We already know how our lives will end.

So why do we continue trying?

What is the point of working seriously and living wholeheartedly?

If nothing lasts forever, then what meaning can life possibly have?

The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said:

“Existence precedes essence.”

We exist first, and then define ourselves through our actions.

Yet we often want to find the thing we truly love before we begin working towards it.

We want to know whether we will succeed before deciding whether something is worth continuing.

We want to understand the meaning of life before we begin living it seriously.

But perhaps we can reverse the order.

The universe has never prepared one standard answer for everyone.

We do not have to discover meaning before we act.

Perhaps it is only through action that meaning gradually begins to appear.

Take this year’s World Cup.

If Cape Verde had needed certainty, if they had known they were destined to lose to Argentina and therefore refused to give everything they had, would we still have witnessed such exhilarating performances?

What moved the supporters was goalkeeper Vozinha’s series of remarkable saves, the team’s wall-like defence and the determination with which every player fought for each moment.

Perhaps life is the same.

Of course, nothing is eternal.

Every relationship will one day reach an ending, and every life will eventually grow old.

But perhaps it is precisely because the ending is inevitable that this moment becomes so precious.

Does a mountain ask what its meaning is?

Does a tree need a purpose?

What meaning does a cloud have?

And yet, when the wind stirs and ripples spread across a spring river;

when a rainbow appears between the mountains after a downpour;

when the final glow of a magnificent sunset flickers along the horizon—

that is meaning.

So I no longer need to know how everything will end.

Nor do I want to spend my life searching for one final meaning.

I only want to enter each moment fully and create with everything I have.

As for meaning, perhaps it will reveal itself in time.