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No one knows what it's all about

We are all in a rat race, whose beginning we do not comprehend, and whose end we cannot fathom. Therefore, in typical human fashion, we have invented systems that keep us sane, as we try to figure out what it's all about. We invented religions, economic systems, socio-cultural systems, political systems and so on, all to make meaning out of our lonely and short existence. But all this has fallen short of fulfilling us.

We know we are on a journey, but don't know a journey to where. We do not know how we will know once we get there. Is it possible that the destination is behind us, but we have not recognized it? "Preposterous," we think to ourselves. Aren't we higher beings able to shape our own paths? Would we not know where our paths are headed?

History does not agree. Every system that has been built seems to have been the ultimate one. Political & economic systems have struggled to lay claim to the title of the "best" and most "sustainable" of them all. Communism was once seen as the system to beat. Now capitalism is the system that drives our world. Ahead of us, I do not know what...

But capitalism and communism are not ends in themselves; they speak to a higher goal. We still struggle with that goal. Should providing financial success be the primary goal of such an overarching system? Should we not strive for something higher, like happiness and satisfaction? Is passing of our genes to the next generation the primary purpose of our relationships? Is there a higher goal that we are missing?

All these questions are tiring to think about. It all seems like folly and vanity. Our just over 200,000 year existence seems to pale in magnitude to the billions of years the universe has existed. What does this mean? Are we trivial and irrelevant in comparison, or are we the epitome of the existence of the universe? Can we relax knowing that we do not matter in the grand scheme of things, or should we shudder that the universe regards us so highly, so mediocre a species?
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