Do not Confuse Meaninglessness with Emptiness: A Message for Mort (and to the rest of us)

Even in a meaningless universe, life need not be empty. We can shape purpose through presence, connection, and courageous action.

Meaninglessness is not only a void; it is also a blank canvas.

Arun Kumar

Summary: Reflecting on a brief scene in Rifkin’s Festival, this essay explores mortality, meaninglessness, and the human capacity to fill the void that existence can bring. It contemplates the indifferent nature of the universe while asserting our power to create fulfilling lives through conscious action, despite life’s impermanence and the absence of cosmic design.

Today, I revisited an old post of mine — Serendipitous Moments, written on August 12, 2023. It centered on a quiet exchange between Mort, the protagonist in Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival, and Death. It was not a climactic moment in the film. In fact, it was fleeting and easily overlooked. Yet the scene stayed with me a long time after the credits had faded.

In a dreamlike conversation, Mort sits across from Death — not trembling, not pleading, but simply listening. And Death, in his cold candor, offers something neither threatening nor profound. Just true. “If we do not come to terms with mortality,” Death says, “then you’ll never be able to relax and enjoy your life.” And then, with a gentler breath: “Even though meaningless, life does not have to be empty. You are a human being. You can make it full.”

Those words had struck a chord — not as a blinding epiphany, but as a truth I had long sensed without ever fully letting in. Over time, that quiet insight has taken root: There is no inherent meaning. Not in the stars that circle above us. Not in the birth and death of galaxies. Not even in the first breath of a newborn.

Meaning does not reside out there, scattered across the cosmos. The universe does not whisper secrets or speak in stories. The universe merely spins — cold, indifferent, radiant. And life, too, follows a similar lead.

At its foundation, life is chemistry: a long unfolding chain of molecular accidents, sparked by the collision of atoms, all governed by blind and impartial laws. Self-replicating molecules emerged not by intention, but through the probabilistic stirrings of energy and matter on a volatile, infant Earth. Life was not a miracle. It was an inevitable corollary of the way nature behaves.

Wherever biology takes root, natural selection follows. Resources are finite. Randomness is ubiquitous. In this crucible, traits that enhance replication survive. And slowly over time, with survival comes complexity.

And so, here we are — descendants of molecular ambition, playing in the sandbox of increasing entropy and an energy constraint environment.

Somewhere along this evolutionary journey, consciousness emerged. Perhaps not as we now know it — with our art, our abstractions, our ache for the eternal — but in its earliest glimmer: the faintest awareness of what happened before and the notion of after, and a whisper of the awareness of self.

We are, in the end, the outcome of a process that had no teleological goal in mind, meaning it was not directed towards any specific purpose or end. But through chance occurrences within the guardrails of physical laws, we inherited a mind that now looks around and asks, “Why?”

But there is no why.

This truth demands courage to come to terms with it. Because if the universe has no grand tale to tell, then we are not actors in a cosmic drama. We are momentary configurations of matter — assembled briefly into the shape of a life. We are born. We blink. We question. We love. We despair. We laugh. We vanish.

What meaning could endure in such a system? Any meaning we create dissolves with us.

And still, we must walk on. That is the paradox and absurdity of our finite existence.

But absurdity is not a curse. It is a gift — an invitation to create. If the universe offers no meaning, we are free to make one. Meaninglessness is not only a void, but also a blank canvas. We can choose cynicism, the cool indifference of being a nihilist. If that gives shape to your days, if it helps you rise in the morning, so be it.

But if it does not — there are other ways. We can choose the option of creating a meaning.

To choose meaning is to act. Meaning is not merely an idea to contemplate. It is something for us to construct. It is not born of thought alone, but of action. It takes shape in our habits, our gestures, our commitments. To live with meaning and purpose is to breathe life into abstraction, and make an idea come to life and tangible.

Without action, meaning remains hypothetical, unmoored from the very life it aims to illuminate.

Yet even as we build, we must remember that the meaning we create is not permanent. It must evolve, and at times, be rebuilt. Our values shift, our understanding deepens, and life unfolds along unpredictable arcs. What once moved us may no longer sustain us. Meaning must remain flexible and open to change, ready to deal with uncertainty, and responsive to our own doubts.

So yes, the universe is, on the whole, meaningless. But within the brevity of our lives, we can still create songs with lasting value.

And that’s where Mort’s exchange with Death endures: “Don’t confuse meaningless (of the universe) with (life being) empty.” They are not the same.

Cosmic meaninglessness is a description of the universe. It is a statement of fact. Emptiness within our finite existence, however, is a condition (and a choice) of how we live. We err when we assume that because the first is true, the second must follow. But it does not have to. A full life can unfold in small, incandescent sparks: the aroma of coffee; sip of a good wine; the warmth of a well-cooked meal; the promise of a journey yet to happen.

A life of presence, connectedness, curiosity, which is a life made full. Its reverberations may not echo across centuries, but it will matter very much to the ones who lived it. And that is enough.

We are here to make the most of the cards we have been dealt. We are free to play them however we choose. There is no need to confuse meaningless (of the universe) with (life being) empty.

And so, there may be no universal meaning to our existence. But that does not mean life must be burdened by its weight. It does not mean smile to be absent from our days. It does not mean some floating Dementor waits to devour the joy.

No. It means that life is ours to shape. To fill. To live.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.