An Evening of Awesome

Looking For Alaska was the first book that I read. I mean really read. Everything before that had just been stories and strings of words, but Looking For Alaska was truly deserving of the word beautiful. Since I first read that book, John Green has become something of a hero to me. During the summer of 2011, I discovered nerdfighteria and the phrase that has been a constant refrain of mine,"Don't Forget To Be Awesome". On the surface, this was just a weird online community that wrote songs about homo-erotic watercolors of Sherlock Holmes and had a name suggesting that it was a street gang, but it's become so much more than that to me. 

I guess I can't accurately express my feelings about John and Hank Green and the community they've created without sounding ridiculously sappy, which is why I've avoided writing anything about the Evening of Awesome. John and Hank created an expansive community for people to be unabashedly enthusiastic about the things they love. Through endeavors like the Project For Awesome, they've helped decrease world-suck and encouraged people to spread positivity. But the thing I love most about nerdfighteria isn't the shared love for Doctor Who or John's books, not the nerdiness or even the inside jokes shared with thousands. No, the thing I love best about nerdfighteria is that it's a community based on an idea, not characteristics. I know so many people who don't watch Sherlock or make references to Star Trek or even play ukuleles, and they're still nerdfighters. There are no "requirements", no liking or disliking things on principle-only the need to spread a little awesome. 

The Evening of Awesome was incredible, needless to say. I was literally twenty feet away from John and Hank. The Mountain Goats performed and scenes from The Fault In Our Stars were performed, the wonderful Kimya Dawson sang and NEIL GAIMAN WAS THERE. I was twenty feet away from Neil Gaiman, guys. And it's hard to think of anything more precious than hearing Neil Gaiman say "I would literally suck donkey balls." John talked about whether the meaning of life is something constructed or inherent, something I've talked a lot about, and Hank performed his endearingly quirky songs. 

The best was the end, though. The Mountain Goats came out and performed "This Year", a song that I've been listening to on repeat since, and everyone backstage came out. I don't know why, but seeing John and Hank with their friends and family, singing along and dancing made me smile uncontrollably. There was a warmness and enthusiasm in Carnegie Hall that night that I won't forget. 

We create our own meaning.

I was writing an essay about hope for a class of mine and realized that there was a lot I needed to say about the subject. It turned into this. Enjoy.

For me, hope can be found almost everywhere. I found hope in the books my parents gave me at the age of four when I found that there is so much in the world begging to be discovered. I found hope in the stories of stars and science, dinosaurs and adventures-stories that filled my head and heart with a burning sense of yearning. I find hope in the knowledge that I am an inconsequential, unimportant, insignificant collection of atoms thrown into a life that was created by luck. This may be confusing to some, but I find comfort in the feeling of being small. Because though, as a whole, the universe does not care about me, the people here do. I find hope in knowing that energy never leaves the universe, that when something dies it is born into something new. On days when gravity seems to be working overtime, I remind myself that my atoms came from the stars I admire so fervently from my bedroom window at night. It is a comfort to me that nothing here was created with a purpose, part of some intricate plan designed by a deity in the sky. We create that meaning. When the universe goes on without us, turning its back on us callously, we can begin to care for each other. We can see that our lives are just a series of happy accidents, and to me, that makes them even more beautiful than predestined stories. 

They say that all human emotions can be broken down into one of two ultimate emotions: fear or love. Every other emotion merely stems from one of the two. And I know which one hope is for me. 

Illustration by Yoshinori Kobayashi
Special thanks to Abhishek Shivkumar, who inspired this discussion of the insignificance of humanity in relation to the universe.