The Search for Meaning in an Indifferent Universe

When the universe stays silent to our need for meaning, courage lies in creating our own to confront and navigate through life’s absurdity.

Meaning, even if self-fashioned, is a north star for our voyage through the cold empty space.

Arun Kumar

Summary: Life’s absurdity lies in our longing for meaning colliding with the universe’s indifference. While meaning is not inherent, to counteract, we can create personal frameworks through values, relationships, and purpose, as acts of our pushing back, granting orientation and resilience in a cosmos that offers none.

It is said that life is absurd.

Albert Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher wrote: “The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need [for meaning] and the unreasonable silence of the world [in providing that meaning].” Søren Kierkegaard, long before Camus, called this tension “the sickness unto death” — a despair rooted in the self’s inability to reconcile its longing for “eternal” meaning with the silent void it confronts. Nietzsche stated: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how,” perhaps implying that without a “why (i.e., the meaning),” the “how” (i.e., engagements of life) becomes unbearable.

You have probably felt this quiet dissonance yourself — perhaps while gazing at the night sky, where stars burn silently across incomprehensible distances, or standing atop a cliff watching the ocean stretch endlessly, turquoise in its beauty but indifferent to your existence.

In such moments, the significance of your existence flickers like a candle struggling to stay alight in a storm. In such moments, your existence feels naked, vulnerable, and exposed, stripped of the shelter that meaning of existence might have otherwise provided. You are here, undeniably present, and yet the world does not seem to notice or care. It neither welcomes nor rejects you. It is simply, well, indifferent.

This is the birthplace of the feeling of absurdity — you want to be noticed, but noticing you is the last thing on universe’s agenda.

Absurdity Defined

So, the notion of absurdity emerges from a collision between our hunger for a meaning for existence and the universe’s indifference to that existence. On one side stands the individual just wishing for a reason to get out of bed each morning. On the other, the cosmos: vast, silent, and governed by laws that do not give a hoot about whether you get out of bed or not.

Why in the first place, might we even think that the universe should offer us meaning or care about us? Meaning is not a property of matter or energy. It is not encoded in the spin of electrons or the curvature of spacetime. Meaning is a human construct, a comforting tale we want to tell ourselves to make sense of our place in the world. The stars do not speak. The oceans do not explain. The laws of physics do not comfort. They simply operate, indifferent to our yearning.

We are thrown into existence not by choice, but by the blind mechanics of biology and randomness. We are the outcome of evolutionary pressures, genetic mutations, survival strategies, and chance. We did not ask to be born, and yet here we are, thinking, feeling, hoping, and compelled to live.

This is the paradox and the crux of absurdity: we must live as if life holds purpose, even when we suspect it does not.

The Courage to Construct a Meaning

To live in the face of absurdity requires courage to stand up. It is not the courage of the heroic kind that slays dragons, but a simpler kind that gets us out of bed, make a coffee, and head to work. It is the courage to create meaning where none is offered. It is courage that made us stand up to a bully in our school days.

And so, to confront the absence of inherent meaning in life, we often craft our own — fragile, personal, and often, provisional. We create meaning by exploring what we value and then choosing actions that align with our values. That choice of creating meaning is our revolt, our push back, against absurdity. It is our freedom and strength to create a meaning. It is our agency through which to confront the absurd.

By choosing relationships, creative pursuits, or spiritual paths, we build scaffolding that allows us to stand upright in the face of cosmic indifference. Meaning, even if self-fashioned and intrinsically personal, offers us luxury of a coordinate system to orient ourselves. It is a north star for our voyage through the cold empty space. It is a way to navigate cosmic indifference without being consumed by it.

This courage to construct meaning is not to eliminate the absurd, for the feeling of absurd continues to exist. It is a stance, a posture, a way of being in the universe that does not care.

And so, the paradox is that we must live as if life matters, even when we suspect it does not. And in doing so, it helps to create a meaning but also be cognizant that meaning need not be absolute. All that matters if it is enough that it sustains us, even temporarily. And even if it is an illusory creation of our agency, it allows us to weather the Santa Ana winds of absurdity.

Epilogue

And so, life is absurd — and yet we must live it. In doing that, having meaning in life is a wonderful aid.

Not because meaning we create is permanent and will always make sense. Not because it offers guarantees. But because having it is like having the ability to slide into an exoskeleton giving us the strength to face the absurdity.

But the mind wonders — are there different approaches to finding that meaning? In the face of the absurd, can we choose to revolt, and stand, against it; can we choose the path of lucid acceptance, or can we carve a path of a fusion of two, i.e., a lucid embrace of life being absurd combined a defiant revolt.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.

 

When the Surf Breaks Unevenly

On the left side of the beach,
there is a first Christmas—
a newborn daughter,
wrapped in gifts
she cannot yet appreciate.

On the right,
a friend with lung cancer
is hoping
to make it
to the month of
January.

Perhaps Nothing

What is next?
the mind asked.

Perhaps nothing—
came back
the reply.

 

Translational Symmetry of Choices and the Burden of Moral Obligation

If we wouldn’t forgive our ancestors for destroying the Earth, why do we expect our descendants to forgive us for doing the same?

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” — Native American Proverb

Arun Kumar

Summary: A thought experiment places us at the midpoint of a 10,000-year timeline where all generations possess today’s technology. It challenges our moral decisions about environmental stewardship, and explores how psychological biases like moral licensing, temporal discounting, and social validation distort our responsibilities toward future generations.

Let us begin with a thought experiment, one that takes a longer view of humanity — longer than we are accustomed to, longer than our boxed imaginations are trained to stretch.

Imagine a 10,000-year timeline. Not a timeline of primitive tools gradually giving way to rockets, but a more unsettling proposition: at every point on this line, from year zero to year 10,000, humans existed with the same technological capabilities as we do now. Same machines. Same plastics. Same global transportation networks. Same capacity to extract, burn, pollute, clean, conserve, recycle, or destroy.

And here we are, you and I, placed squarely in the middle of this timeline. The year is five thousand. Five thousand years before us, a long unbroken chain of technologically adept ancestors made choices and left their mark on the world we inherited. Five thousand years ahead, a line of equally capable descendants awaits the footprints of choices we will leave behind.

Now here is the question — simple, elegant, and damning: do we want our ancestors to have made the same choices we are making now; and if not, then why are we making them?

Why should we expect moral wisdom from our ancestors while indulging in moral neglect towards our future generations? Although we may think so, however, we do not hold a special place in 10,000-year timeline.

Now imagine a series of tall, neon-lit messages standing upright along the timeline — visible to every generation as they pass by. The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is etched across it. But when we look there is something lost in translation. We cherish the Golden Rule when it applies to people sitting across from us at the dinner table or walking beside us in the neighborhood. But when it comes to those who came before or those who will come after — suddenly, reciprocity of the Golden Rule is an inconvenient truth.

The bottom line is that the visual symmetry of this timeline is striking — whatever we choose to do, can also be chosen by any generation. If we choose to pollute, extract, and waste with abandon, then we implicitly accept that our ancestors would have done the same. But if we grimace at the idea of receiving a ravaged Earth from the past, we must also recognize that we have no moral ground to do the same for the future.

So why the disconnect?

Why, with this clear visualization of translational symmetry of the consequences of our actions, do we still act with such reckless asymmetry in choices we make?

Let us begin with the most cited culprit: The Tragedy of the Commons. The phrase sounds poetic, but its implications are brutal. When shared resources — air, water, forests, climate — are unregulated, individual users act in their own self-interest and overexploit the resource, even though it is against everyone’s long-term interest. We all know this story. No one wants to be the sucker who conserves while everyone else exploits. So, we all rush in. We grab what we can. We rationalize.

If I do not take this flight, someone else will.

If I do not drive this car, if I do not build this factory, if I do not expand this business — someone else will.

And so, we participate in the tragedy of the commons. Collective action toward the greater good, when left to individual choice, becomes an entropic impossibility. It is like expecting that, in the absence of a brain, the trillion cells in our body will act independently yet somehow coordinate well enough to sustain our well-being.

Then there’s temporal discounting, a psychological trait for how we routinely undervalue the future. This is not just selfishness; it is baked into our biology.

Our ancestors evolved in environments where immediate threats — predators, famine, disease — mattered more than far-off consequences. If the berries are ripe today, you eat them. You do not save them for a hypothetical famine next year. That impulse — consume now, worry later — may have served us well in a world of short lifespans and local consequences. But today, that same impulse does not serve us well. No wonder, saving money for the rainy day or for retirement is a hard commitment to make and follow.

And perhaps we do not honestly believe the future exists. Not in a visceral way. We speak of our grandchildren, but we do not picture them living in a degraded environment. We live under a kind of moral anesthesia, comfortably numb to our fingerprints on time.

There is another human trait that deserves mention: moral licensing — doing something good and feeling that we have earned the right to do something less good (or bad) afterward without guilt. We go for a run in the morning and then feel fine eating an extra slice of cake later. We buy a reusable bag and feel we have earned a vacation in Bali. We switch to LED bulbs and celebrate with a weekend shopping spree.

We mistake awareness of something for action. We confuse intention with impact.

And then there is the evolutionary desire to be seen, to be validated, to rise in the pecking order. A small hybrid car is good. A bigger hybrid SUV is better. Who can fly more to attend climate summits at faraway places and reach the million-miler status first and to bring that up in casual conversations.

All of these traits — evolved instincts, psychological quirks, social pressures — create a fog through which we look towards the future. If we can articulate the temporal symmetry of choices, and believe in the Golden Rule, then the moral burden of our action is squarely on our shoulders.

It is a simple question to ask: If the environment we have today had been ruined 5,000 years ago by people with our level of capability and our level of negligence, how would we feel?

Would we curse them?

Would we say, “How could they have known and still done nothing?”

Even if we pretend that we are not sure about the consequences of our actions, should we not err on the side of caution? Should we not hope that our ancestors would have done the same for us?

But now, if you will excuse me, it is time for me to drive four miles to the neighborhood coffee shop. I need to buy a tall cappuccino made from beans shipped 6,000 miles away, served in a disposable paper cup with a plastic lid. I will sip it while basking in air-conditioned comfort and pretend to feel virtuous because I brought my own straw. And there I will ponder, with renewed energy brought on by coffee, the moral burden of the choices I (we) make.

Ciao, and thanks for reading

 

The Meaning of Life and the Meaning in Life

We may never uncover life’s cosmic purpose, but we can still shape our own meaning — through connection, purpose, and conscious daily choices.

We may never know why we are here. But we can choose how to be here

Arun Kumar

Summary: This essay explores the distinction between the meaning of life — a metaphysical inquiry into our cosmic purpose — and meaning in life, the pursuit of personal fulfillment through daily experiences. By separating the unknowable from the actionable, we give our agency a chance to craft purpose, joy, and meaning within our finite existence.

There is a persistent tension woven into the human psych. We not merely have the need to exist (and exist without a feeling of emptiness), but we also have a deeper urge to understand what that existence is for. Simply being often feels insufficient; our consciousness complicates the matter by asking what that our being is for.

This tension crystallizes into a deceptively simple question: What is the meaning of life? That question contrasts with a different question about what would make our existence feel meaningful. To engage with these questions, however, one must first clarify their scope.

The question about the meaning of life is a metaphysical question that seeks our place within the workings of vast cosmos, and also, the meaning of cosmos itself. The other question about the meaning in life is an introspective search for feeling a purpose in the context of activities that shape the contours of our daily existence.

To conflate these inquiries is to blur the boundary between cosmic significance and personal fulfillment while we exist. By distinguishing them, we can begin a more nuanced exploration: one that considers both our existential position in the universe and whether the span between birth and death feels imbued with purpose, direction, agency, and fulfillment.

The Meaning of Life: A Cosmic Inquiry

The question of the meaning of life is old, vast, and perhaps unanswerable (and my own perspective, tilts towards that there is no inherent meaning). This question is in the domain of metaphysics, theology, and speculative philosophy. It asks: Why does life exist at all? Is there a purpose to the universe, or to human consciousness? Are we part of a divine plan, a virtual reality simulation, or an inevitable consequence of random unfolding of matter and energy within the guardrails of laws of “physics”?

The question is not entirely academic but also has practical consequences. It is the question that leads to sleepless minds or to dark thoughts at 3am in the morning when we lie awake. It drives religious devotion. It fuels existential despair about the meaning of our ephemeral existence.

To seek the meaning of life is to ask whether life has intrinsic purpose; whether there is a reason we are here that transcends our individual stories. It is a question that often leads to bafflement, or to myths, or to faith. And yet, even in its elusiveness, it constantly shapes an inner longing for resolve.

The Meaning in Life

In contrast, the meaning in life is not concerned with telos of consciousness but with our personal significance in the context of our day-to-day life. It asks: What makes this life worth living? What makes me get out of bed? Where, and in what activities, do I find joy, connection, or purpose?

This question is the realm of lived experience and whether my consciousness finds that lived experience engaging and life does not feel empty.

The meaning in life is found in the small and the specific: the thrill of creation, the connection in friendship, in sharing a glass of wine, in renting a house along the beach for a week and inviting family and friends to come over and be together. It is found in the rituals we craft, the stories we tell. It is not a question of why we exist, but of how we choose to exist. The consequences of this question exercise our agency and choices we make.

Why Distinction Matters

To confuse the two is to risk paralysis. If we wait to discern the meaning of life in the same vein as the meaning in life, we may find ourselves adrift, or worse, totally miss out on an opportunity of having a meaning in life while trying to grapple with the much tougher (or perhaps, insolvable) problem of understanding the meaning of life. But if we recognize that meaning in life can be cultivated independently in the absence of cosmic answers, instead of being paralyzed, we reclaim agency to shape its outcome.

This distinction is also cognizant and respects the diversity of human experience. Not everyone is questioning the grand narrative of existence. Some are content to just live and with finding meaning in this life. They find meaning in art, in activism, in spending time with their grandchildren. The meaning in life is not singular and is personal.

Moreover, the two inquiries can coexist. One may believe in a divine purpose and still struggle to find meaning in daily life. Conversely, one may reject metaphysical meaning and still live with a sense of profound purpose, fulfillment, and satisfcation. The meaning of life may be unknowable; the meaning in life is always reachable and something within our capabilities to create.

Cultivating Meaning in Life

Although the meaning of life is a question we may never answer, the meaning in life is something we can cultivate. Its cultivation requires recognizing what we value, a good recipe for which is to take a critical look at the totality of activities we have and evaluate which ones are engaging, or create a sense of flow, or make us get out of bed in morning. Once we know what we value, then the task is to build ourselves a portfolio of engagements that actualize what we value. Doing this exercise may help us cultivate meaning in life.

Epilogue

Ultimately, the two inquiries into meaning are not adversaries but companions. The search for life’s meaning can evoke awe, humility, and wonder — offering guidance on what truly matters and what does not. If this finite life is all there is, then what is the point of holding grudges? In building walls and refusing to open up. In not reaching out, even if it makes us vulnerable. In the light that this finite life is all we have, meaning in life is not just a distant abstraction — it becomes a quiet invitation to live more openly, more courageously.

Within those guardrails of the meaning of life, the cultivation of meaning in life can be built to offer joy, resilience, and peace.

We may never know why we are here. But we can choose how to be here. And in that choice, repeated daily, we may find a kind of meaning that does not require cosmic validation. Inherently, life may be meaningless, but it does not have to be empty.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.

A Diabetic’s Remorse

The chocolate dissolved slowly on my tongue,
the caramel-glazed cheesecake
caressed my lips.

They felt heavenly,
almost orgasmic.

I will pay the price—
for those moments of surrender.

 

Flashes in the Internet Sky: A Retrospective at 200 Posts

Marking 200 posts, I reflect on writing, mortality, retirement, and the quiet joy of inquiry in a world overflowing with words.

We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect — Anaïs Nin

Arun Kumar

Summary: A contemplative reflection marking 200 posts, this essay explores writing as a practice of presence, adaptation, and inquiry. From evolution and mortality to retirement and pickleball, it traces a journey of thought shaped by time affluence, existential curiosity to keep asking deeper questions.

My first post on Medium was published on August 1, 2021, titled “I have something to say, would you be interested?” It emerged from a quiet contemplation: in an age of the internet and practically infinite content, how does one’s voice find its place? The web’s explosive growth has created a vast, ever-expanding universe of words — so wide that being found within it feels like a cosmically improbable event.

In that post, I questioned whether originality was still a prerequisite for resonance. Must every idea be new to matter? Or can recycled concepts, reframed, still strike a chord? I suggested that a blog post, like a supernova, does not need to be groundbreaking to illuminate. Its value lies in the moment it “flashes” into someone’s field of view — when its words, however familiar, feel freshly lit against the backdrop of their attention.

I concluded with a line that became my manifesto: “If the words [you write and post] flash through the right part of the internet sky that I look at, I am interested in what you have to say.” That sentence gave me permission not to be exceptional, but simply to write and offer my thoughts. And that was enough to begin. Since then, the journey has continued.

And today, on September 3rd, I mark my 200th post.

I am quite proud of having stayed the course — committed to posting at least once a week, with each article scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m. Writing has become a steady companion, a definitive part of my portfolio of activities. It is self-sustaining, requiring no coordination with others, and as long as my cognitive faculties remain intact, it is something I can continue indefinitely (though, of course, there is the ultimate limit set by mortality).

Writing also serves as a kind of existential pivot. If physical pursuits like pickleball were ever to fall away due to injury or age, writing would remain — a durable backup, and perhaps even a primary engagement. It has given purpose and meaning to reading and deepened my commitment to continued learning.

Over the past year, the emergence of AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot has made the learning process more fluid and accessible. They have become collaborators of sorts — sparring partners, sounding boards, and accelerants to thought.

Across these two hundred posts, a distinct cluster of themes has emerged, each orbiting the central questions of change, meaning, and the human condition. Evolution and the inevitability of biological emergence — natural selection, adaptation, and the architecture of the senses — have been recurring subjects, explored through the lenses of biology, psychology, and perception. Journaling has served as both method and mirror, capturing reflections on mortality, existential inquiry, and the transition into retirement. Philosophy threads through it all. sometimes solemn, sometimes playful. probing the contours of selfhood, time, and truth. Politics appears occasionally, reflecting what is currently going on. And humor, ever present, provides levity — a reminder that even amid meditative musings, the absurdity of life deserves its own space. Together, these themes trace a journey of change, aging, and the quiet passage of time.

At this stage of life, certain aspects of writing have become easier. I no longer feel tethered to metrics — likes, shares, or the need for fleeting validation. That said, I will admit: every now and then, a cue triggers a rush of dopamine, nudging me to check the stats. But that is okay. It is a gentle reminder that I am still human, still responsive to connection.

Being closer to mortality has also deepened my contemplative musing. Questions of existence, meaning, and impermanence arise more frequently now, offering fertile ground for exploration and meditative flight. Writing has become not just practice, but a way of channeling these reflections into a quiet dialogue with my finitude.

On the personal front, a significant transition unfolded between my 100th and 200th post: I retired. The preparation and intentional thinking that went into building a portfolio of engagements to ease that shift paid off. Retirement, often feared for its potential to become void, has instead offered a time affluence, a spaciousness I have put to effective use. It has not become the monster it could have been.

We also moved from Maryland to the South, into a 55+ community, and we were pleased with the choice. The environment suits us, and the rhythms of daily life feel more attuned. Pickleball has become a joyful pursuit, and I have grown quite good at it. In parallel, I have also begun posting some articles on LinkedIn, extending my reflections into new spaces and audiences.

In the years ahead, as I march toward my 300th post, the journey into meditative inquiry will persist. I will continue to find myself drawn to pondering our existence against the vastness of a universe perhaps absent of intrinsic meaning — tracing the cosmic journey woven from glowing stars and swirling galaxies, down through the improbable rise of self-replicating molecules and onward to the unfolding of life’s evolutionary path that brought forth you and me. My thoughts will meander through social norms, wondering how progress alters the very landscape in which natural selection operates — particularly when we seem to have broken through its guardrails. But perhaps it is a process that never truly ends, only the players in the arena of war of evolution change.

As I look to the future, I will continue to contemplate the trajectories humanity might follow if current patterns endure — all while quietly observing and building stories about everyday moments and reflecting on lessons gathered from the pickleball court.

As one grows older and mortality draws nearer, certain questions acquire a sharper urgency. Chief among them is the quiet reckoning with the fact that one day, there will be no “me” left to know that there ever was a “me.” The legacy I might leave behind, subject to exponential decay, is no consolation to the self who will not be around to witness it.

But before I drift too far into the maudlin, let me pause here. I look forward to being here again — with my 300th post.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.

Returning the Loan

Across the street—
on the wrap-around porch—
a rocking chair sways gently—
holding the outline
of someone
who chose to return
the borrowed atoms.