Questions Questions

I am a victim of an existential crisis these days. Somehow my well thought out solution to life has been reduced to something of an enigma wherein there seems to be no question at all. Let me explain. The enquiry always pertained to a version of, what is the point of this life. To which I very cleverly articulated that history of humans speak the answer itself. Its the smaller and the bigger ones, it labour and rest, its beauty and taste, its deceit and glory, maybe sometimes its exertion and magnificence; ultimately its the prize you covet. My tiny, baby brain understood the concept very well. 

But as the rust set in the encephalon and it no longer shed tears of a tot, I was flummoxed with a plague of drowning inquisitions. The first one being, is my question flawed in itself. Is it what or if? If there was even a point to this life which brings in everything but the most which registers is strain? Why do the big or the small? What is the achievement? Is anyone even looking? Even legends draw a blank when they finally get their prize. Maybe it was a loop of reward after reward. Thats what keeps a person going. 

For a quick moment there was a solace in this self-acknowledgement. However, not for long. The hesitation lingered, and with it came a procession of unwelcome visitors. Camus drifted in first, murmuring of the absurd — that knife’s edge between my hunger for meaning and the universe’s refusal to speak. Kierkegaard appeared next, tilting his head toward a leap of faith, as if I should throw myself into the arms of a God I’m not sure is there. Nietzsche slammed the table, urging me to forge my own meaning, while Sartre, almost bored, reminded me that I am condemned to be free, and thus entirely responsible for the shape of my life. Simone de Beauvoir stood beside him, weighing freedom against the cost of living authentically. In the corner, Schopenhauer sighed about the futility of the will, and Pascal eyed me like a gambler, certain that the safest bet was on the divine. Heidegger’s shadow stretched long, pointing always toward death, while Kafka slid across a form stamped in triplicate — as though my entire existence needed bureaucratic approval.

And I am left staring at the strange currency of life. Why be right or wrong? Why guard the bridges of chastity, uphold the veil of morality, polish the head that’s been taught to be “proper”? If so much of our energy is spent on being good, and so little is required to be bad, then what are we even doing? Who decides these rules? And if someone decides — does their decision matter once we are dust?

The more I turn it over, the more it erodes. What once felt solid becomes mist. The question is gone. The answer is gone. Only a kind of naked bewilderment remains, like standing in an empty square after the crowd has vanished, hearing nothing but the faint hum of a world that neither confirms nor denies, neither applauds nor condemns. And in that silence, even the urge to ask fades — leaving me unsure whether I’ve reached the end of the search, or merely stepped off the map.