Welcome to our mind-bending exploration of the "Paradox of Existence." In this blog post, we're diving deep into the philosophical conundrums that make your head spin faster than a tilt-a-whirl at a carnival.
Ever wondered why we're here? Or if the universe is just a giant cosmic joke? Well, you're in the right place. We're going to tackle questions that have baffled the greatest thinkers in history, and we'll do it with a healthy dose of wit and whimsy.
Are we all just characters in someone else's dream, or are we merely particles floating in the vast cosmic soup? Buckle up, because we're about to take you on a wild ride through the paradoxes that make existence simultaneously bewildering and beautiful.
So, grab your thinking cap (or maybe a funky hat, just for fun), and join us as we journey into the depths of the "Paradox of Existence." It's going to be a mind-bending adventure, and we promise you'll come out the other side with a smile on your face and a few more questions in your head.
Disclaimer: This passage below is purely speculative.
Why do we live? Is there any purpose? Does life have any innate meaning, or should we be the ones who create some meaning out of nothing, like Nieztche said? Like, really, what's the point behind all the laughter and crying,loyalty and betrayal, courage and cowardice, humiliation and honor? Maybe everything has to do with survival. Everything that is done by humans has an implicit or explicit connection to survival, knowingly or unknowingly, whether it is love, friendship, or even your weird dog (if you don't have one, pretend to have one).
We will start with your weird dog. Once upon a time, They were wolves. Homosapiens domesticated them into dogs, and as we know now, Homosapiens shared their foods with the wolves, and in return, the wolves helped humans hunt their prey by being a personal bodyguard. It's kind of like Venom and Eddie Brook. There is some symbiotic relationship between us and dogs that is mutually beneficial, which increases survival chances not only for humans but also for wolves. Now we visit the most cliched topic in the history of story writing: "love", Who doesn't want it? (There are some), but I'm not talking about that kind of love, which is too cheesy. I'm talking about love when we feel for someone, which isn't romantic and also has a connection to survival. How? From an evolutionary perspective.
Love increased our bonds between people, promoted social bonding and cooperation, increased attachment, cared for offspring, and created a strong network, which, as you know, increased our chances of survival. Friendship is kind of the same as love but has a subtle difference. It also enhanced our social bonding, cooperation, alliance formation, and cultural transmission, which basically trained us to act as a group, and acting like a group compared to being individualistic enhanced our survival chances. You know that when you are the only person wearing a Batman costume to the Marvel Comic Con, you feel weird and awkward, right? Well, Some feel unique. This is not an accurate example, but we still have an urge to do what our surroundings do. We always have an urge to fit in with society.
Why? Belonging, identity, Social acceptance, reducing uncertainty, and social reinforcement are all factors that help us navigate life easily, which helps increase our survival chances. We mostly try to mimic the behavior of our society. You may feel that you are special or unique because of your choices in life, but in reality, you are just an altered copy of your surroundings, including your parents, neighbors, friends, teachers, the movies you watch, and the books you read. Why am I giving this irrelevant piece of information? This has to do with our adaptation. Human beings are born to adapt to most situations, and to survive, you have to adapt to the environment. Without adaptation, you just disappear out of existence. Especially in evolution, we are nothing but copies of our previous patterns. Everything around you feels new and different compared to our past, but in reality, it's just a pattern followed by the previous pattern. I do not think that there is anything new in this world, but the essence of everything feels too antiquated. Every living thing in this world has one goal. That is, to survive; we want to survive just to survive more. And everything that is good for survival feels good, like having sex (which you don't need an explanation about) or eating fatty foods. You cannot complain about fat people for being fat because eating fatty food is really good for their survival, just probably not in the current era. That's the difference. When we are cavemen, we should have a fat diet to store more energy in our bodies. Eating calorie-dense food made us store more energy in our bodies, which really helped us survive during times of scarcity. I know this is a long, boring text on survival, but my only question is why we should survive. What's the point behind all living things' instinct to survive? All those emotional and physical roller coasters just to pass a gene? Really, why all this just to pass your gene? What's the bigger picture here? It's really perplexing to think that everything we do is based on just a desire to live.
Can there be some species in the future that exceed this urge of survival instincts and become a new kind of species, or is it just impossible to happen? We humans seem like a bunch of cells in our bodies, don't we? strive to survive (body cells don't have the consciousness to survive but exhibit some behaviors that collectively contribute to an organism's survival). They want to reproduce. Cells also communicate with each other through chemical signals. We also communicate about a lot of things using various mediums, and we are also keen on reproduction. So who knows? We are also a bunch of cells, like in our bodies, that make something big. Maybe this whole universe is just a small animal that is made by a lot of stars, and we are just a small part of it, or, who knows, this whole universe could be a single cell of a big living organism? And maybe that universe has some kind of basic instinct to do or be something like we living things have an instinct to survive. In short, no one knows why we live or have the urge to survive, even though many have come up with an answer. Nothing is compatible with everyone's beliefs; what is compatible with everyone's beliefs anyway? Can we exceed our essence and be something, or are we (living things) no different than Sisyphus, who rolls a big ball over a mountain without any particular reason other than the sake of rolling that ball over the mountain itself? It feels like we are trapped, but we have adapted to the trap of survival. It's like when you enter someone's house, you can sense a different smell. As time passes, you don't even notice any different smells; you have just adapted to their environment.
One of the problems with the desire for survival is that its primordial survival instincts aren't relevant anymore in today's world. Some are relevant, but some are just absurdly irrelevant, like:
Sugar and Fat cravings: As I mentioned earlier, seeking calorie-dense food made us store more energy in our bodies, which really helped us survive during times of scarcity. But in today's era, it leads to unnecessary obesity.
Group Conformity: Our ancestors relied on social groups for protection and resources, but in today's era, it leads to conformity bias, peer pressure, or even situations that aren't beneficial for us.
Dominance and Hierarchy: in ancestral groups, hierarchical dominance helped us maintain order, but in contemporary society, it can really bring unnecessary power struggles and conflict.
Suspicion of Outsiders: Primitive societies have to be careful about outsiders who are a potential threat to their community, but in today's era, it can lead to a lot of stereotypical or prejudiced bias against different members of other communities.
Hoarding: collecting resources is important for survival, but in today's world, it just becomes a desire for excessive materialism. Fight or Flight Response:This instinct helped us to respond to immediate danger and threats, but in today's era, it's not entirely useless but still leads us to some unnecessary anxiety and stress, and most entertainment industries exploit this instinct by offering a lot of dark-themed stories. Even news channels nowadays mostly promote dark-themed stories or headlines to grab our attention. Compared to positive stories or news, we engage more with dark-themed news or stories due to our fight or flight instinct, which always looks for unknown threats and dangers. And so on... These instincts are like our grandparents advice; even though some of it is relevant to today's world, most of it is really irrelevant to the contemporary world. But unlike our grandparents advice, these primordial instincts are way harder to ignore. My problem with evolution is that it's freaking slow. Those survival instincts mentioned above were definitely useful for our ancestors, but not for us anymore. I hate those survival instincts more than the human desire for survival itself.
If you ever thought of your existence as useless or pointless, remember : We are surviving just to survive more.