IDEA - 9-20-2020
by
Patrick Ryan
1,676 Words
Is life meaningless? When Kiara returned home from her mother's funeral; the third funeral in two months, she also attended her father's and her uncle's; there was this needling question in her head. She tried to work through a relentless reminder of the meaning of life, but it just distracted her into a daydream. She tried to suppress these feelings, but it only gave her a headache. Then she tried to sleep through the residual depression of the question's context, but the effects were represented only in her dreams. She couldn't get out of the issue, so she decided to embrace it. Kiara was raised as a Catholic, so she decided to seek an answer at the church, but she was surprised that, as an adult removed from religion for so long, she saw through the veil that it was silly their answer was faith. A construct that fails to satisfy the question, the excursion produced more questions than answers. The universe is organized chaos, and the brain, or, more precisely, the neurons become the librarian of chaotic environments. Neurons place a name on everything, attach value to artificial creations, and construct navigations to avoid knowing the reality that life could be meaningless. Without the neurons to assign a curtain of significance, everything would be the same, stardust. All the atoms were forged in the heat of the sun, so we are all made of the same material. Watching a football game is watching stardust play stardust, with stardust, for stardust. Two people having sex are stardust combining with stardust to shape more uniquely arranged stardust. These thoughts started to replay themselves in her mind. Kiara decided to smoke a joint that her friend, Rodney, had given her to cope with her parents' death. She hadn't smoked weed since college, but she wanted something to take the edge off. She inhaled in and leaned back on her sofa. She was transported to a world of play-doh, play-doh people driving play-doh cars, play-doh from houses to play-doh jobs, so they could earn play-doh money to buy play-doh stuff to make them happy. When she came down from her high, she realized that this was another diversion from the real question, was life meaningless? At that point, Kiara decided that her life experiences alone were not enough to address this issue. Is the question even answerable? Kiara was visited by Heather, a friend she hadn't seen since high school. They used to have sleepovers and to watch movies together. She dropped by to offer her condolences, but Kiara strongly felt that there was another reason. She persuaded Heather to take a road trip to the desert to see a man who might have answers to the question. The videos of his preaching coincided with the solutions Kiara had sought. As they arrived, peyote was offered, Heather rejected, but Kiara participated. As the "priest" started to preach, the effects of the peyote began to kick in. Our minds categorize stuff on this rock, and everything that can be seen from this rock. This rock moves relative to a giant helium and hydrogen clump, which moves relative to other spiral clumps, and the spirals move relative to other spirals. All of which are moving away from each other at an ever-increasing speed. We happen to live in a time when our brains can see and organize this stuff; even if it was a different time, nothing could escape the horizon of light, and the sky would be dark. We're all the results of our environment. Asking if there's any meaning is like asking, what time is it? It's subjective to the individual; if I say it's 3:34, that might well be right for us, but not for most people on the planet. After driving all the way here, all she got was the very distractions she was trying to avoid. As Heather is driving back, Kiara is beginning to hyperventilate in the passenger seat. She pulls over, and in the middle of the night, Kiara gets out and runs into the desert. Heather is not pursuing her as she strongly believes that Kiara has lost her mind. Kiara runs until she comes to a mobile home in the desert; her mother, father, and uncle all appear in front of her. It seems that the three most important people in her life, having just died, are challenging her reality. They tell her that life is meaningless; most of the things you do and make will not be remembered one or two generations from now. But that doesn't mean that life is empty, that you pursue your reason, and that you live for yourself! No one will care about your life as much as you do; your goal must be yours. As Kiara returns calm to the car, Heather is waiting. "You've been waiting?" "Well, I was about to leave ten minutes ago, but I didn't want the burden of your death on my conscience." Over the next few weeks, Heather and Kiara rekindled their forgotten relationship, and Kiara persevered. Now she knows that the meaning of her life is inside her, and that's all that matters.
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