Is there a point for a better world?

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I often ask myself what my misery provides as opportunity. As Nietzsche and Viktor Frankl have delved at depth, they who have a “why” can overcome any how, but Viktor Frankl in particular documented how those in the deepest depths of active misery, enacted by others unto them still find opportunities and psychology to keep going. I don’t remember much of my reading except certain images of pages and strings of broken text that appear in my head. A certain forgotten clarity.

But a lot of us lie in between, very far away from the extremes. We can’t imagine the wealthiest among us having misery and we’re jaded, hyper-exposed to the miseries of the apparently most unfortunate in the world. Be it Ukraine which no one seems to care about, Sudan, Congo and the visibly hyper-exposed Palestine which exposure has yet to deliver the results the Palestinians need.

Nonetheless, there’s that thought that follows. What’s the point? Why does any of this matter? Who cares? If the human species were to disappear tomorrow, the rest of life will take over anyway.

We’ve taken beautiful lengths to imagine this, the world of Pandora in Avatar, the ruins in the Last of Us and many others my tired mind has yet to recall. Oh, and of course, Stray, that cat game with those curiosity inducing robots.

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This is where the vision we can craft as humans come in. That “better”. Always striving for that “better”. Other animals are quite content with their cycles, but we strive for “better”. We’re built for that. If we don’t try to strive towards the better, our body follows suit and becomes intimate with entropy, where we slowly de-materialize toward random equilibrium.

I’ve seen this in myself. The deepest depths of my depression just makes me want to be a passive consumer of Jacksepticeye videos and sleep for 14 hours a day. I wither away. I don’t need to eat as much, showers go down to maintenance amount (I SHOWER AT LEAST ONCE), but again, if I managed to live alone, I guess that wouldn’t be needed, like so many others who suffer this way do.

“Better” isn’t as black and white. “Better” needs a deep understanding of what is not “better” and we’re constantly confronted with how subjective “good” and “bad” are. But, we make decisions and we’re in a “better”EST state than ever before, at least for us humans. The other animals, ocean and flora have some stern opinions they’re conveying to mother nature to strike us down eventually (unless we’re successful in harmonizing with them in time).

The true “better” keeps us here. Whether or not its needed, is a pointless question. We constantly YAP about survival and all the roles the various adults within our various systems, societies and families YAP about this too.

But if survival is the goal, then death is the destination, because you can’t survive forever.

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Survival is a state where you achieve your absolute minimum requirements to stay alive, at least medically. If you can’t use your human faculties to their absolute potential, which survival states FORCE, as you are in a minimum state, those who face anxiety constantly can relate to this too, creative and innovative work is at a standstill because your body is prepared for the intangible threat that is coming in the next minute or two for the next few hours LOL.

Anyways, if you can’t innovate and be creative, you can’t build that which you need to exist for the longest possible term because as I mentioned in the previous paragraph and sentence.

But this is the status quo. We are a dying species.

With that said, there are some moments in the perilous waves of my mind where I lie on a figurative raft and see the beautiful sky. I think “I want X”. I think “I want to do Y”.

And there’s our life.

I ask you, dear reader, to not be a walking corpse because there isn’t necessarily any point to a better world.

But we can choose to want it.

Make of that what you will.

H.Panicker