Why must I have the will to live? I understand that I am neither intellectually gifted nor valuable in various aspects. It seems unlikely that these qualities will help me or aid in achieving a meaningful life goal.
The beginning of this might not be very encouraging, but I must tell you a true story:
When I was eighteen, I lived with my parents. One day, as I was about to take a shower, I noticed an ant near the drain. Without much thought, I picked up the ant and released it into the grass in our garden, then went back inside to take my shower.
Four years later, at the age of twenty-two, I was living in Majorstua, Oslo. One evening, after hosting a drinking party with two women, I walked them to the train station. At that time, my apartment was aglow with thirty tealight candles, and there were two half-empty bottles of whiskey on the bed. Upon returning, I was greeted by eight firefighters and five police officers. My apartment had been scorched.
I had lived there for only a month and had no insurance, losing 30,000 kroner in cash and new furniture. All that remained was the bed. My parents had moved to America, so I had to live in that charred apartment for nearly two months. Each morning, I would find soot and chemical residues from the fire around my nose and mouth, damaging my lungs. I had to quit my temporary job, which offered almost no rights, and couldn’t receive money from NAV (the labor office) or timely support from the social welfare office, which came three weeks later.
During those three weeks, I was almost starving, everything seemed dark, I had lost my job, my health was deteriorating, and I was living in a burnt apartment. Yet, I realized something. Humans are left with hardly any adventures, princesses, or dragons, and everything feels like a prison of minds within a machine, like “The Matrix,” existing only for ourselves. From a cosmic perspective, we are insignificant, believing the city limits are the universe’s end. When we lose our home, job, spouse, or money, we feel we have nothing left, leading many to end their lives.
Sitting in Frogner Park, lying on the grass, looking up at the sky, trees, and birds, I contemplated what truly matters in life, beyond human society’s egotism, something cosmically meaningful. Then, I noticed an ant walking in the grass.
At that moment, I realized that saving the ant from the shower when I was eighteen was the most valuable and selfless act of my life. It wasn’t the ten million kroner I earned, nor the high praise I received in Norwegian and English, nor the 300-page book I wrote at fifteen. It was that ant that saved my life. Because it was then I first understood the meaning of value and how easy it is to be blinded by the magnitude or impression of things. Ten million kroner may seem more successful than an ant in the grass, but in reality, it’s the other way around.
Moreover, intelligence has nothing to do with value or significance. It’s all about symbiosis, understanding your surroundings, and realizing you are a part of it.
You are part of the phenomenon of life, as much a part of me as my own arm. We are all connected within the concept of life. Your goals and whether you achieve them are not important; what matters is what you do in the process.
There is always time to start anew, and every action and experience holds value. You are pursuing entropy, a constant state of change. This is the fundamental function of the universe and existence, and it is why you are here.
Even in death, the electrons and particles that make up your body will continue to find new connections in new places.
You did not choose your life or to be born. So, the question of “having the will to live” is inappropriate. What matters is contributing to the phenomenon to which you belong in your own unique way. Even a homeless drug addict effectively contributes to the encompassing, growing phenomenon. What constitutes “success” is a subjective human creation, and considering the box called society, on another planet, the most successful social status might be that of a homeless drug addict.
The fact that you sit before a screen and ask people who have no idea of the meaning of life, causing them to spend a few minutes reorganizing their lives to answer your question, is evidence of a very complex domino effect. Had I not seen your question, I might have gone for a walk and perhaps met an accident and died. Every single one of your actions has effects you will never know, but these effects exist in this moment and spread infinitely.
Your existence has meaning, whether you see it, feel it, know it, or understand it. Just like you, everyone will experience moments or periods of questioning life and feeling it has no meaning. But that doesn’t mean it’s true. And just as nothing lasts forever, neither do these feelings. One year, five years, forty years, or three hundred years from now, you will feel and think completely differently.
