Speeding Toward Nothingness

I don't really believe in much of anything anymore. When I was a child, I believed in things like God, a purpose in life, and true love (of course, I also believed in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and integrity in the Oval Office). However, it seems that the older I get, the less I believe-- and there isn't much left to believe in at this point. I'm thirty-something and I'll probably live for a while longer, but I'm already tapped out in the beliefs department.

What I seem to struggle with daily is the idea that there really is no reason for me (or anyone else) to be here. We human beings like to believe that we're somehow "special"-- that there is some sort of purpose behind our existence. With the loss of god many years ago came the unraveling of order in the universe and eventually the evaporation of any reason at all for my presence. I don't mean to suggest that things necessarily disappeared in that order-- they all faded together, it seems. They all walked off into the sunset, and I was left with nothing but my purposelessness.

Without purpose, things like motivation and discipline are hard to find. What's the point of doing anything, after all? I'm going to live and die just like the millions of people who have done so in the past and the millions that will do so in the future. Most of those who are already gone had no great purpose in life, and those who did make some sort of mark made it upon humanity-- and humanity ultimately will perish as well. Nothing lasts forever, and without permanence, there is no real purpose.

Whether they realize it or not, most people live for one thing: pleasure. It may appear that different people pursue different things-- some people seem driven toward money and power while others seek knowledge or enlightenment-- but these are all just varying means to the same end. In the end, what we're all really trying to find is a little joy... in what can be an otherwise meaningless existence.