It's existential crisis time!
One makes mistakes. One improves on them. Then they make more mistakes. They improve on them again. Striving for excellence and perfection until death, this is what we call a meaningful life, fully knowing that everything we built and have disappears when we die.
Why? Because it's more painful to live a life full of mistakes without even trying to fix them, than to live a life trying to fix mistakes yet the mistakes never end. Perhaps one of the main thing that can measure life satisfaction is our ability to accept and improve on our mistakes, fully knowing that they won't disappear even if we accept or improve on them, they'll just get a little easier to handle.
Life is still difficult, despite knowing that all difficulties are simply a passing illusion created by the mind, specifically the complaining voice in the mind we call "self". We wake up and toil each day hoping for the better, following behind the masses and also seeking after what they're trying to chase, despite not knowing what they're actually trying to chase.
Indeed, I know, we all know it too well, painfully well. That writing this article in idle contemplation won't really change anything. That knowing the truths and realities of life won't make life any better. That even if it does change anything, the changes would either be too small or too subtle to notice. That even if we notice those positive changes, all satisfaction are short-lived as we are confronted with another set of difficulties and challenges.
There's no need to be sad because sadness too, doesn't change anything. There's no need to feel guilty, because our guilt isn't going to make anything better. They're all just conceptions born from mental reactions of the ever-complaining, forever-wanting, herd-following voice in our head.
No, blaming that voice in the head isn't going to change anything. It would be like the creator of a robot blaming the robot for doing something, when they're part of the ones that programmed them to do it, along with every other person in the world. The interesting thing is, even if ten trillion people worked together at something for hundred centuries, it only takes any person a few days to change it. After all, it only takes one light bulb to illumine a room that has been dark for countless centuries.
Despite all structure and protocols people make to maintain stability, life can literally end in just a slip of the foot; everything they have been working hard to keep, everything they have been trying to chase, all the progress they have made, it only takes one instant for all of it to disappear. Human life is extremely fragile, what makes us think that we will still be alive tomorrow? Just because we still have dreams? Just because we think of ourselves as "special"? Just because we haven't cleared our browser history?
The universe doesn't care about any of that just as how we don't bother to think if the ant we accidentally stepped on has an ant family waiting for it home, just as how we don't stop eating just to think of the lives of organisms we ate. Regardless of how hard we try to cling to the life and possessions we have, life will keep changing. Nothing lasts. The sun will fall when it's night and no one will be able to prevent it. The sun will rise when it's morning and no one can prevent it either.
It's strange, no, it's normal for us to cling and hope for stability when everything is bound to change at some point. Why? Because it's difficult for us to live in a world that doesn't make sense, so we try to create standards, protocols, policies, procedures, measurements, rituals, and every crude logic we could come up with just so we can feel even the tiniest bit safe in this ever-changing world.
But then isn't that too, a mistake? One that we don't want to change, one that we don't want to improve at all — the worst kind of mistake. And as said before, it's better to live a life trying to fix our mistakes from time to time only for them to keep on coming, than to live a life without any change, without even trying to fix some of our mistakes.
Interestingly, we see mistakes as a one to one function, such that there can only be one person or group who makes it and the same group should be held accountable for it. However, in life, we are constantly recreating the world and the world is constantly recreating us. Thus, everyone is influenced by their environment, which is the entire world, including the over seven billion people who lives in it. Despite that, a single person or group can change everything in an instant.
Therefore, mistakes isn't a one to one function but a many to one relation where everything is highly interconnected and influenced by each other yet the actions of a single individual or group can change everything. No one can be blamed for anything but anyone can take action on it. No one may be blamed for the trash on the ground but anyone can pick it up and throw it in the trash. No one can be blamed for the life we have now but anyone in the world can change it, including strangers, including ourselves.
Thinking about it, this concept gives rise to the potential idea that everyone has equal potential to change themselves, other people, or anything in the world regardless of all differences and status. Society may make it seem that only the rich ones, connected ones, privileged ones, and lucky ones are able to effect change but in reality everyone is a part of this world, thus they are able to create change, and in truth everyone is equal in their potential to change the world.
Indeed, the universe is like a decentralized system, something like a blockchain, where anyone can add new information but they may not delete or change anything on it nor can a single person or group be able to fully control the blockchain. Nature is like a system of rules, the natural laws that spins the wheel of change, that which we call Truths. Just as how a blockchain rewards those who sustain and apply it with financial incentives, the active application of natural laws to sustain the wheel of change rewards people with true freedom, that which is called Good.
It's rather an unfortunate coincidence that those which are normal are not ideal, those that are ideal are not real, and those that are real are not true. One can't help but question, "Why must I keep following the back of other people where neither of us know where we are truly going?". It's like we're ants, simply following trail, but the difference is we have no idea why we're following the trail so we often get sidetracked by so many things, that any straight line will inevitably become a spiral, any circle will inevitably become a random polygon.
Despite all our efforts at questioning, contemplating, and complaining, we inevitably keep dancing to the tune of time, repeating second after second, day after day, and decades after decades like an infinite spiral that never seem to end yet would someday be suddenly terminated by death.
Despite reading countless books and articles about freedom, we are bound to repeat, and it is through this repetition that we conceive and desire the wings of change, and it is through experiencing this change that we conceive and desire the comfort of repetition. Forever alternating, changing yet not changing, moving without moving, such is the reality of the universe.
Despite philosophizing, thinking, and writing for countless eons, one inevitably returns to fall in line among over seven billion human beings, forever following the back of someone else, fearing even a single thought of emptiness and loneliness. If one cannot change, then they are bound to repeat. If one cannot bear to repeat any longer, then they are bound to change.
Truly, the universe neither rushes nor worries, for everything is subject to natural laws. The universe doesn't fear that this natural laws won't be able to account for one unexpected event not because these laws accounts for every possibility, but because it is through these laws that all possibilities can be made.
For reality is thus, regardless of what we think, how we feel, or what we do, we are all playing by these same natural laws. And just like how anyone who plays in a gambling house inevitably lose, all those who follow these natural laws will inevitably proceed to a certain direction, that direction of truth and goodness.
While we may inevitably return to our mundane normal lives after reading this article, the universe insures that everything will be fine, except on moments when we let the mental reactions of the ever-complaining, forever-wanting, herd-following voice in our head temporarily take over our sense of reality.
To let the universe work on its own without making any effort on our part is no different than saying that the future will be better yet refusing to work in the present moment — a great foolishness. While we can't be entirely blamed for our actions, identity, thinking, and behavior, we have the capacity to change it even by what seems to be a little amount. Refusing to change our life by ourselves is fine, as long as we're okay with asking for help and letting other people change our life for us.
Although we may seem like video game NPCs who are fully aware that they are simply repeating everything yet continuing to repeat everything, the difference is that we can get tired of all these repetition and inevitably create change. Even if we don't get tired, other people can get tired of it and inevitably create change. Even if other people don't get tired of it, the new generations will get bored of it and inevitably create change.
When all is said and done, one accepts the inevitability of life, as well as death. Just as how the sun will inevitably rise at dawn but inevitably fall at dusk, change is inevitable but repetition is just as inevitable. We're not that different from ants that follow from behind nor are we any different from the fishes that goes with the flow of water.
The only thing that makes us different from any of them is that we can either have the mental reactions of the ever-complaining, forever-wanting, and herd-following voice in our head or the transcended awareness of the peace-loving, truth-seeking, and gentle-speaking sublime voice of the soul.
"It can't be helped, unless someone decides to help it."
"Those who hide emotions with reason can be far scarier than those who hide reason with emotions."
"Just because the room keeps getting messy doesn't make the cleaning any meaningless."