One of the hardest things to accept in life is that there are no definitive or “right” answers. One of the hardest aspects of the process of growing up is that whether it’s your parents, your teachers, or even society as a whole, everyone is making up concepts just like everyone else. There is no absolute certainty.
There is no cosmic or universal instruction manual. When we’re born, we don’t come into this world, into this reality, with a predetermined destiny or a purpose etched into us.
Simone de Beauvoir argues that this concept is called ambiguity, and she thought it was actually wonderful that it was this way.
But, on the other hand, she said we should be careful to distinguish it from anything else that might resemble it but isn’t exactly the same—such as something more dangerous or sinister: nihilism.
De Beauvoir notes that if we look at someone who says that “nothing really matters,” we rarely find in that person someone who is at peace—with themselves, with the outside world, or with the world at large. Instead, you will find someone who is furious, bitter, and detached.
Because, in truth, nihilism is a kind of disillusionment or disenchantment with life itself.
It is a kind of disappointment stemming from a desire that has not been fully fulfilled. It is as if a child were to discover that Santa Claus does not exist after all, and then decide that there is no reason to feel joy or any other reason to celebrate Christmas itself.
But the absence of a specific purpose is not the same as a complete absence of purpose.
Just because something is ambiguous or unknown doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer to be sought—or to be created, thought out, imagined, or dreamed up.
In fact, the exact opposite is true.
Because if someone—or something—had given you a pre-written script for your life, you wouldn’t have any chance to choose or make decisions. If someone had told you how you should speak, or how you should behave, or even, “Here are all the answers you’re looking for,” you wouldn’t truly have a life to live, or be living. It would merely be an existence in a movie, in which you’d be a character in a familiar story.
Purpose isn’t something you find or discover simply by lying around and doing nothing.
It’s something you do and for which you’re called upon to take responsibility every day.
That’s why there are no answers provided by the universe or the stars.
But that is exactly the point.
Because life is a blank page.
And we are the ones holding the pen. We just have to write the story we want or hope for.
Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
Source for this post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_de_Beauvoir
Original text written by @xrayman in Portuguese and translated with DeepL.com (free version)
