So, it sometimes seems like I spend the majority of my life as if I’m stuck in one of those cartoons where the characters wake up and although something different happens each day, they still all wear the same clothes and make the same mistakes and think the same things and on and on and on, deep, dark forever, until the deep, dark end.

The truth is, I’ve accustomed myself to the notion that life has no meaning. And that’s true; how could it have any? Disregarding my inherent lack of spirituality and godlessness, there’s  just the plain and objective world that I see with my own two eyes, that everyone sees with their own eyes. It’s the indisputable and universal truth that the emotions we project on the world around us aren’t strong enough to imprint upon or affect rock formations or tree saplings or wind currents. This planet will keep on turning whether we like it or not, whether we call it beautiful, or a waste or whatever other adjectives we can assign onto a floating green and blue sphere.

We know life has no meaning. We do. And this isn’t pessimism, but cold, hard realism.

I remember one time that I brought this notion up with someone and I was told that I was depressed and should seek help. Perhaps this is true; but on the other hand, realism is associated with depression, alongside pessimism. Only optimism is associated with healthiness, and that is a bias after all.

But let’s stick with the depression thing for a bit. It’s no lie that I’m a sad and anhedonic loser. But similarly, so are all of my friends and all of my acquaintances. I can hold the number of people I can safely count as mentally healthy on one hand.

I read an article that determined that the more affluent your area of living, and the more dense the population of your town or city, the more likely you are to be depressed. And the supposedly strong call of “You are not alone!” from health classes, middle school and up, simply reach out and bounce back against a great big crowd nodding their heads. Yeah, everyone thinks they’re alone. That’s not the issue. The problem is that they are not.

I refuse to succumb to the notion that this is simply teenage angst. This is not simply a biochemical issue, or a growing up issue. This is a socioeconomic issue, clearly. But most importantly, it is an existential one.

We are depressed and life is sad and bad and empty because, as already mentioned, it is meaningless; we are going day by day without purpose.

Life is ultimately a series of growths. However, I have discovered that one only grows when there is reason to do so.  If bad things don’t happen, you have no reason to get better and so you stay stagnant, and every day is exactly the same, forever and ever, until the deep, dark end. Breakups, romantic or otherwise, are times where you find yourself and feel happier than you ever have. That F on that English paper just means that you have room to get better, and the opportunity as well.  Every loss is a lesson, every pain is a blessing.

What I mean to say is, despite life’s inherent lack of meaning, it is important to look for one anyways.

In order to be happy in this empty world, one has to deliberately confront the badness in order to find the good. There is no meaning to life; life has no meaning. We are well acquainted with this fact. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t give it one, and make this floating rock just a little bit warmer.