On Death, Love, and Everything In Between

It's been a while since I have written something. Probably been out of the game for a while. I always question whether my writing is driven by my depression, as I have frequently observed that the topics just come out when you are depressed. It's almost as if you need to be in a certain state of mind to think about certain things. And when life is going relatively well, you just don't feel that urge to write anymore. Today, I want to talk about death. Yes, again. I think ultimately all roads lead to mortality and morality. I sent a note to my friend a few days ago, and this blog will revolve around those topics.

So here's the deal. In the past few months, I have been very busy with my work, and slowly but steadily, I would say after July, I got out of my depression. Or I won't say it like that. Rather, the depression has mellowed down, or perhaps spread. In scientific terms, I would say that rather than the tip of a spear, it has now become something flat. The surface area has increased, but the pressure has decreased. And I think that happened probably because I have maxed out on a couple of things. Depression, antisocial behaviour, awkwardness, nihilism, absurdism, minimalism, and personal philosophy. You see, maxing out in those areas is very weird. What I mean by maxing out is that I have spent so much time thinking about these things, understanding them, questioning them, and living through them that they no longer have the same emotional effect on me. It's not that I have forgotten about them or that I have found some ultimate answers. I think I have simply reached a point of acceptance. And there is a difference between knowing something intellectually and actually accepting it emotionally. You can understand nihilism, read about absurdism, acknowledge that life has no inherent purpose, and still spend your nights worrying about why you exist. You can know that you're going to die and still be terrified of death. You can understand that material possessions don't mean much and still desperately want them. Knowing something doesn't necessarily mean you have accepted it. And I think that's where the difference has happened for me. The ideas haven't necessarily changed, but my relationship with them has. I am no longer constantly fighting those thoughts. I can understand them, accept them, and still enjoy ordinary life. And interestingly, those very ideas that once contributed to my existential dread have now become a source of peace.

Recently, I was watching this Chris Williamson podcast where they were discussing how each time you reach rock bottom, that's a new rock bottom, but with an increased floor. And every time you come out of it, it's the next phase. I found that interesting because I think repeated experiences with depression and existential dread eventually change how you perceive things. Each time you go through something, you come out with a slightly different understanding. Not necessarily stronger, wiser, or better, but different. And perhaps over time, those experiences accumulate into something. There's also this concept of the Sublime, which Robert Greene talks about in relation to his book The Law of the Sublime. It's about moving beyond the ordinary limits of how we perceive ourselves and the world. And there are aspects of this larger perspective that I also find in Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, particularly his reflections on death, nature, and our place in the universe. I will come back to this.

So what does all this result in? Nothing is inherently good or bad, positive or negative, at least not in the grand scheme of things. There is this feeling of surrender to life. And I don't mean surrender in the sense of giving up. I mean surrendering the constant need to control life, to demand something from it, or to expect it to turn out in a particular way. There is no more chasing success in the traditional sense, nor is there a need to move to a cabin in the woods. And I find that quite funny because I think these are the two extremes we often imagine. Either you become incredibly successful, wealthy, and achieve something extraordinary, or you abandon everything and live a simple life somewhere in the mountains. But why does it have to be either? I still want to be successful. I still want to make money, pursue my ambitions, learn new things, and build things. I haven't suddenly lost interest in any of that. The difference is that I no longer attach the meaning of my entire existence to those outcomes. If I achieve something extraordinary, great. If I don't, that's fine too. And I don't mean that in a disappointed, defeated way. I genuinely mean it. I think this is basically the result of all those maxed-out areas, combined with spending a considerable amount of time understanding death and morality.

So let's deep dive into it. When you think about death and the Sublime, you eventually start thinking about things beyond yourself. The universe, matter, the various life forms, consciousness, the sheer scale of existence, and how incredibly tiny we are in comparison. Think about it. We are on this small planet, revolving around an ordinary star, in one galaxy among billions of galaxies. And here we are, worrying about our careers, relationships, money, social status, success, failures, and whether people like us. I'm not saying those things aren't important. They are important to us because we experience them. But when you expand your perspective beyond your immediate surroundings, they start looking very different. And I think this is where the Sublime becomes interesting to me. It's that feeling when the focus of the soul moves beyond the grandeur of your own little life and toward the grandeur of the cosmos itself. When your identity, ego, ambitions, and personal problems stop being the centre of everything. In religion, there are different ways of approaching something like this. In Christianity, there is the idea of finding Jesus. In Hinduism, there is Brahma, the ultimate reality beyond our individual existence. And then there are philosophical approaches that don't necessarily require religion or belief in God. I am not saying all these concepts are the same. They aren't. But I think they are different ways in which humans have tried to understand existence beyond the individual self. For me, it doesn't necessarily have to involve God or some supernatural power. Just contemplating the universe and understanding that I am a tiny part of something unimaginably large is enough.

And when you start looking at life from that perspective, I think you no longer care about yourself or your tiny life in quite the same way. Now, that sounds depressing, doesn't it? But here's the interesting part. That doesn't mean you don't value your life. In fact, it's the opposite. You place a very high value on it. You understand the importance of your existence, your body, and your mind. You understand that this tiny window of consciousness, however insignificant it might be to the universe, is everything you have. It's just that you're no longer as interested in normal human stuff. Again, it's not that extreme. I still live in the same world as everyone else. I work, deal with people, have ambitions, get irritated, and sometimes worry about things. But the intensity has reduced. There is much less stress over normal human suffering, conflict, behaviours, success, and materialism. Things happen, and I deal with them. They don't always need to become some grand existential problem.

My mind is much calmer. Yes, there are still remnants of depression, as I mentioned earlier, but my overall perspective has taken a rather positive turn. That existential dread is largely gone. And it's more like, I am gonna die, we all are gonna die, and hence, I am at peace. I know that sounds contradictory. Usually, when someone thinks about death, it creates anxiety. The uncertainty, the fear of losing everything, the idea that one day you will simply cease to exist. But I think if you sit with that thought long enough, really sit with it, something interesting can happen. You stop treating death as a problem you need to solve. Because there is nothing to solve. Death is going to happen. Whether I become rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful, famous or unknown, whether I achieve all my dreams or none of them, that outcome remains unchanged. And once you accept that, a lot of the unnecessary pressure starts disappearing. I don't have to stress if I am not able to achieve that grand dream. That grand purpose in life. I don't have to constantly worry about leaving a mark, being remembered, or doing something extraordinary just to justify my existence. Because why should my existence need justification in the first place? A tree doesn't need to become the tallest tree in the forest to justify its existence. An animal doesn't need to accomplish some extraordinary feat. They exist, they live, and eventually they die. And somehow, we humans have convinced ourselves that our lives must amount to something grand. That we need to achieve something. Become someone. Leave something behind. But what if we don't? What if I simply live a good life, experience things, love people, learn, create, and eventually die? What's wrong with that?

And this is where I think the biggest flip has happened for me. Instead of constantly thinking about how to make my entire life extraordinary, I have started thinking about how I can make today better. How can I make my today more productive, full of love, and meaningful to me? And more importantly, how can I go small? Because there is no need for everything to be big and grand. This doesn't mean giving up on ambitions. I still have them, and I will continue pursuing them. But those ambitions no longer get to decide whether my life was worth living. There is a difference between wanting something and needing it to feel complete. I think I have slowly started moving from the latter to the former. And that flip has helped me get more in line with managing my health, studying more, studying philosophy, and being more compassionate with people. Because when you're not constantly occupied with proving something to yourself or the world, you suddenly have more room for other things. And perhaps the ordinary things that I once overlooked are actually the things worth experiencing.

I think Marcus Aurelius' Meditations has played a huge role in bringing all this together, combined with my previous knowledge of other stuff. It's a rather simple book in terms of language and presentation. There are no complicated arguments that require years of academic philosophy to understand. It's just a man reminding himself of things that are, in many ways, quite obvious. That we are mortal. That things change. That people behave according to their nature. That we cannot control everything. That death is natural. That we should pay attention to how we live rather than constantly worrying about what happens to us. And the funny thing is, I had arrived at several of these conclusions on my own over the past few years. Reading Meditations didn't suddenly give me some new purpose or completely change my worldview. It was more like finding someone who had already put several of my scattered thoughts into simple words, nearly two thousand years ago. And perhaps that's what made it so effective. Sometimes you don't need a new philosophy. You just need something that brings together what you have already been thinking about.

I am no longer as stressed about the outcomes of life because, at the end of the day, we are here for a short time, and in the grand scheme of things, it means nothing. There is no need to leave a mark. And I think we are simple creatures in the grand scheme of things, just here to reproduce and pass on our genes, just like other organisms, and nothing more, at least from a biological perspective. We eat, sleep, reproduce, survive, and eventually die. Of course, humans have developed incredibly complex societies, cultures, technologies, religions, and philosophies. But beneath all that, we are still biological organisms. And I think our perception of being fundamentally different comes largely from consciousness. We are aware that we exist. We can reflect on our own existence. We can imagine a future that hasn't happened, remember a past that no longer exists, and most importantly, understand that one day we will die. And I find consciousness to be a rather strange thing. Because think about it. If you didn't have this level of self-awareness, would you have stressed so much about life, success, dreams, or grand purpose? Would you have worried about whether your life meant anything? Would you have spent years questioning the universe and your place in it? Probably not.

And yet, this very consciousness that creates so much suffering also gives us the ability to understand that suffering. That's the irony. We have this extraordinary ability to question our existence, and we use it to make ourselves miserable because we cannot find an answer that satisfies us. But perhaps consciousness doesn't necessarily have to be used that way. If we can use it to create anxiety about death, why can't we also use it to understand and accept death? If we can use it to obsess over the future, why can't we use it to appreciate the present? And if we can use it to create imaginary standards of success, why can't we also use it to question those standards? I think that's an interesting contradiction. The very thing that creates existential dread can also become the thing that helps us move beyond it. And perhaps this is also connected to what I understand as the Sublime. Not necessarily escaping human existence or becoming something greater than human, but becoming aware of how limited our usual perspective is. Understanding that there is an entire universe beyond our personal problems, and allowing that understanding to change how we live. You see, I don't think I have become less ambitious or less interested in life. If anything, I think I have become more interested in actually living it. Just without the unnecessary burden of making it mean something extraordinary.

And this brings me to morality and love. Because there's an obvious question here. If nothing matters in the grand scheme of things, why bother being good? Why be compassionate? Why love people? Why not simply become indifferent to everything? And I think that's a fair question. For me, the answer is rather simple. Just because something doesn't have an inherent cosmic meaning doesn't mean it has no value to me. The universe might not care whether I am happy or sad, whether I love someone, whether I achieve my dreams, or whether I spend my entire life doing absolutely nothing. But I care. And so do other people. We experience joy, sadness, suffering, pleasure, attachment, loneliness, and love. These experiences are real to us, regardless of whether they mean anything on a cosmic scale. And if this is the only life I have, why would I want to spend it being miserable, angry, or indifferent? I have already spent enough time experiencing some of those things. And when you remove the constant pressure of ego, ambition, comparison, and the need to prove yourself, I think compassion becomes a little easier.

You start looking at other people differently. Everyone is dealing with something. Everyone has their own fears, ambitions, insecurities, and suffering. And ultimately, everyone is heading toward the same end. The person you dislike, the person you're jealous of, the person you're competing with, the person you love, and you yourself. All of us are temporary. And when you think about that, some of our conflicts start looking rather ridiculous. I'm not saying you suddenly stop getting angry or become some enlightened monk who loves everyone. That's not what I'm talking about. You still have boundaries, preferences, disagreements, and all the usual human behaviours. But perhaps you don't need to carry so much unnecessary hostility. And this is where I have started looking at love as a default. Not necessarily romantic love, but love in a much broader sense. Compassion, kindness, care, appreciation, and the simple act of making someone's life a little better. Because technically, what else do we have to give? We don't own anything permanently. Not our money, possessions, achievements, bodies, or even our time. Everything is temporary. And if everything is temporary, perhaps the most sensible thing is to make the experience of being alive a little better for ourselves and the people around us.

Now, I understand that accepting death can lead people toward very different conclusions. Someone might become indifferent. Someone might become more ambitious. Someone might turn toward religion. Someone might want to experience every possible pleasure in life. And that's fine. I'm not suggesting that contemplating death automatically leads everyone toward love and compassion. I'm simply saying that's where it has led me. Because I no longer feel the need for life to provide some grand meaning, I have the freedom to decide what matters to me. And I think love is a pretty good choice.

So what is it that I want you to take away from this blog? I think if you want to understand your purpose and become a more conscious person, you should probably start by understanding death. And yes, I know I am placing opposite things back to back. I just spent all this time talking about how consciousness creates suffering, and now I am suggesting we should become more conscious. But that's exactly the point. Now that we are conscious, can we make good use of it? Yes. And I think for any person, beginning to understand universal and personal philosophy can start with understanding death. Not simply knowing that you're going to die. Everyone knows that. I'm talking about understanding it in a deeper and deeper sense. What does it actually mean that your existence is temporary? What does it mean that everything you own, everyone you know, and everything you've built will eventually disappear? What does it mean that the universe existed long before you arrived and will continue long after you're gone? And most importantly, how does knowing all this change the way you live today? Because that's where I think the real value lies.

And don't get me wrong, it's not like a one-time thing. You don't read a book, meditate for a few days, think about death, and suddenly become free of all your fears. It's a process. Day in and day out, year after year, that understanding deepens. You revisit the same questions, sometimes arrive at the same answers, sometimes change your mind, and sometimes realise that the questions themselves were unnecessary. And over time, perhaps you gain a little more clarity about your life. At least that's been my experience. I have spent years thinking about mortality, purpose, nihilism, absurdism, and the strange nature of human existence. Some of those thoughts contributed to my depression and existential dread. But after repeatedly confronting them, I have reached a point where I can accept them without being consumed by them. I haven't discovered some ultimate truth. I haven't solved the problem of existence. And I certainly haven't figured out everything about life. But I think I have stopped expecting life to provide answers to questions that perhaps don't have any.

I still want to achieve things. I still want to be successful, make money, build something worthwhile, and experience more of what life has to offer. But I no longer need those things to justify my existence. And strangely enough, accepting that I am going to die has made me a little more interested in living. Not necessarily in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things without constantly questioning whether they are enough. Because perhaps they are. And ultimately, I think what I want is rather simple. To accept death and embrace love as the default. To understand that I am a tiny part of an unimaginably large universe, that my existence is temporary, and that I don't need to accomplish something extraordinary for this experience to be worthwhile.

Perhaps that's what the Sublime means to me. Not some final destination or a permanent state of enlightenment, but a shift in perspective. An understanding of the universe, or God, or Universal Consciousness, or Brahma, depending on how you choose to interpret it. A point where you can look beyond yourself, understand how little you are in the grand scheme of things, and still appreciate the incredible fact that you exist at all. And perhaps that's enough. We are going to die anyway. So why not live a little, love a little, and stop making everything so unnecessarily complicated?