When we’re young, we often strive to Achieve Great Things(TM). It’s easy to dream when we have our whole life ahead of us, a vast ocean of possibility and potential.

As we get older, reality starts to set in. The things we planned to have done, are still left unfinished. It becomes more and more apparent that our legacy may not be as great as we had once hoped.

There’s a character in a John Green novel who passes through the world without really any expectations. She chooses not to engage, and just enjoys the tragic beauty of existence. There’s something to be said for that. We don’t have to Achieve Great Things(TM). There is no pass or fail mark at the end of life, except our own evaluation of ourselves, perhaps the evaluations that others have of us, memories that will fade with time.

What we do in this life says a lot about our character. Many of us aren’t given the kinds of opportunities to Achieve Great Things(TM) that a few lucky people get. Given this reality, what we do with what we have, how we try to live our values, whatever they are, is how we can judge ourselves.

When we look in the mirror, who do we see? Who are we to those who love us? To those we love? Perhaps we’ll never truly know.

The world is a mass of atoms, a mess of ideas, and a myriad of people living as best as they can. There is value in this world, but it is up to us to decide where that lies.

Nothing we do matters to the end of the universe. But everything we do matters to someone somewhere for a fleeting moment in their life. All the big journeys are a series of ever so small steps. As long as we try to go in the right direction, we can hope that we’ll find a way home.

In the end, we won’t live forever. No amount of Singularities will make us immortal, because entropy cannot be reversed. Our demise is inevitable. Which makes life inherently seem tragic. But in truth, we don’t need to live forever. The longer we go, the less each moment seems to count in the sea of moments we have. It is better then, to live moments that matter.

The human condition is just this. We can’t escape it. We can defy it with all our might, but as frail human beings, the universe is an uncaring wall of stone against which we cannot pass. But we can write on the wall, and leave our mark.

Ultimately, life is what we make of it. Whether or not we were created for some purpose or not, we exist with dreams formed by our experiences. Dreams that may never be made real, are nonetheless real within us, true as anything, like an equation written in stone. Or perhaps in sand that blows away.

But for a moment, we are real. But for a moment, the universe is something we experience, even if most of it is unfathomable madness. To live is to embrace something beyond ourselves, and to see the beauty in the madness.

Worlds exist within each soul. Constructs of our imagination. Strands of hope and threads of fear, and every string of attachment and folly. All is weaved into the life we live, a thing that brings us both joy and sorrow, at different moments, different waking breaths.

Is there justice, ultimately? We cannot know this. The gods alone know what is truly right. We can seek and strive to fulfill a destiny, or demand our cause is righteous. But in the end, we know only that we were someone somewhere, seeking goodness, seeking to do what was right, failing and falling, but then, getting up again, dusting off our feet, and standing at the edge of eternity.

Our world isn’t real. Not in the sense that we can know what is outside our senses. But our world is real to us. Our world is an innate truth inside our souls. Nothing can take away the happiness and sadness we experience. They are etched into time, though they may yet be forgotten.

So, what are we to do? Take a deep breath. Imagine the world we want to be. Live a life with a mission worth fighting for. Or accept the world as it is. Or both. We can strive and hope, and still recognize the beauty of a world gone mad.

Let us dream of worlds unseen, and search for paths to the future, aware that our life is but a faint light flickering in a world of shadows.

The world continues to turn. We will be what we are and were.