@philosophyminis: One of the hardest things to accept in life is that there are no definite answers. One of the hardest things about growing up is that your parents, your teachers, and society more broadly are just making it up as much as anybody else. There is no cosmic instruction manual. There is no purpose tattooed onto your being at birth. Simone de Beauvoir argued that this is called ‘ambiguity,’ and she thought it was great, but she said we should be careful to differentiate it from something far more dangerous and darker: nihilism. De Beauvoir argued that if you look at somebody who says that 'nothing really matters,' and you will rarely find somebody at peace. You will find someone angry, bitter, and withdrawn. Because nihilism is a kind of heartbreak. It’s a kind of disappointment at a wish that has not been fulfilled. It's like a child who has just found out that there is no Father Christmas and so decides that there is no joy or celebration to be had as well. But the absence of a given meaning is not the absence of meaning. Something being ambiguous or unknown does not mean that there is no answer to find or to create. In fact, it's the opposite. Because if somebody gave you your life pre-written, you wouldn't have any choices to make. If somebody told you how to talk and how to behave and ‘here are all of the answers,’ you wouldn't have a life to live. Meaning is not something you find just lying about. It's something you make and which you are responsible for every day. So no, there are no answers given to us from the universe. But that is the point. Because life is a blank page, and we are the ones holding the pen, and we have to write the story that we want.

Jonny Thomson

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Friday 03 July 2026 17:26:05 GMT