Katrina

At the ripe age of 12 I came to the realization that my life is meaningless. It’s strange to look back at that time because I would assume that most people who become aware of their cosmic insignificance do so because they are prompted by some eyeopening event. But in my case I remember being perfectly content living in my vapid seventh grade universe and then simply waking one day to crippling existential dread. I guess I'll never know the reason why my little bubble of pubescent happiness was shattered but all that matters is that I had suddenly seen my pathetic life flash before my eyes and I couldn't think of one good reason to continue living. This may sound a little dark for a 12 year old but I've always had a bit of a morbid side. And so I lived in a stagnant world where I was unable to return to my previous innocence but also unable to advance my thoughts past the fact that all my actions were futile in the face of the void. So when I was able to have my thoughts to myself, I would spend hours considering my options. The obvious solution was to commit to a spiritual bond with some god or supernatural being that could assure me meaning in my life. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't bring myself to have faith in what seemed so illogical and uncertain. It was simply too much to ask of me to spend my single lifetime in blind servitude to the possibly of an afterlife. So I moved on to the very tempting solution of death but that didn't sit right with me either because if death was the solution to life then all the serendipitous events that led to the evolution of humankind were not actually happy accidents but sick jokes that condemned those aware of life to also despise it. Finally, I turned to literature and those I assumed to be much more knowledgeable than I was, only to find that no one else seemed to know the answers to the burning questions on my mind. Resigned to failure, I allowed myself to remain in the purgatory that my life had become. But finally one day, I realized that the answer had been in front of my face this entire time. The meaning of life was simple: a box of kraft mac and cheese. Sorry that was anticlimactic, I know. But seriously, my parents rarely buy mac and cheese so when they do, I can't stop thinking about it. As soon as I start feeling hungry my mind drifts to that solitary box on the pantry shelf and I feel a tug in my heart that I can only describe as pure longing. The same thing happens when I spend too much time looking at pictures of forests freshly damp from the rain. Or when I memorize the pathway of blood through the heart and the major veins and arteries of the body just for fun. I was so consumed by looking for meaning on a deep and universal level that I never even considered the fact that the meaning of life could be simply that there is none. We're alive and sentient and have passions and longings and a constant need to better ourselves and isn't that enough? Isn't it enough to just simply exist? Probably not. But for now it's the solution that I'm going to go with. I'll probably have a new theory about the meaning of life by the end of the week but that's just because over analyzing things is a full time occupation for me. I fully subscribe to the belief that definitive answers don't exist anyway. Thus, I suppose that the problem of finding meaning in my life is the largest problem I will ever face and also probably never solve.