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.