On Ego

Waves beat against a volcanic shore. They have been beating like this for tens of thousands of years. And you still want to achieve some kind of success in life, don't you? Build a company, earn enough for a new house? Except that there have already been tens of millions like you. You do not know most of their names. And even for the ones you do know, all their successes are dust on the scale of history and the universe. So how do you hold both at once: the drive to achieve something in life, and the knowledge that in the end none of your actions mean anything?

Thoughts like these are sometimes very interesting to me. So I will try to set out my own view of the problem.

Our life really is not all that important. Let us think of some outstanding person. Henry Ford. He revolutionized the automobile industry, made billions, became a symbol of the American industrial age. And yet, for all his achievements, how often do we think of him? Almost never. Had he never existed, someone else would surely have made that revolution.

Will any of us become Henry Ford? I very much hope so, but most likely, no.

From these reflections one could conclude that since our life is so useless, there is no point in trying at all. Perhaps we should drop every aspiration and simply enjoy ourselves? Perhaps.

But it seems to me there is another option. Does it not strike you that the idea of life's meaninglessness frees us from ego and from expectation?

If all my actions really are that small and insignificant, then all that is left for me is to choose the work that will fill this emptiness. And the absence of expectation gives me the freedom to do that work well.

Everyone will find their own answer to the question of how to fill that emptiness. What matters is genuinely trying to answer it, rather than running forward simply because that is what is done.