Billions - an essay on the futilty of existence. скачать в хорошем качестве

Billions - an essay on the futilty of existence.

My audio essay about the nature of life, existence and being... and how trivial it all is. Billions. For most of the history of the universe, I didn’t exist to have opinions about it. Planets orbited, stars burned, and oceans washed against shores without needing my input. Then, late in the story, I arrived. I took a breath, learned a language, developed preferences, created desires and worries, and convinced myself that this brief time was the main event. It has been said that existence is an interlude in an otherwise continuous stretch of nonexistence. Billions of years without me, a few decades with me, then quiet again. It’s not comforting in the usual way. There’s nothing warm and fuzzy about it. It’s more like someone opened a window and let in fresh air…Sharp and clarifying like a winter morning. The universe hasn’t been waiting for us, yet here we are. If it were a theater, we wouldn’t be the main attraction. We’re late arrivals who slip in halfway through the movie, decide the plot is about us, and just as we start to care, someone taps us on the shoulder and points to the exit. The universe does not applaud. The film continues. This may sound bleak until you realize the billions of years before your birth were not experienced as deprivation. You didn’t feel boredom or loneliness. There was no “you” to miss anything. If that first absence wasn’t a tragedy, we should question why we see the post-death version as terrifying. We often imagine death as something to endure, like sitting alone in a dim, windowless room with a single chair. But if nonexistence simply continues, there’s no one left to suffer it. None of this undermines grief. When someone dies, the loss falls on the living. It feels like a subtraction from the world you still inhabit. The “brief interruption” idea doesn’t cancel that pain. It only questions the quiet fantasy that you will somehow stay aware during your absence, hovering nearby to inspect your own disappearance. If life is an interruption, then it also comes with no guarantee. It’s borrowed time with a repayment date you can’t predict. This frustrates the part of the mind that craves fairness, explanations, and organization. However, there isn’t any. Knees wear out. People around you become ill. Plans fail for reasons that may not have any larger meaning. The universe is not cruel; it simply doesn’t revolve around our preferences or our schedule. This can be liberating. It becomes harder to justify spending this interruption on trivial arguments, status games, and small grievances we secretly know don’t matter. You start asking a more practical question: Is my attention going where I truly want it to go, or is it getting drained by meaningless habits and obligations? If life is a brief interruption, we should give it the attention it deserves. Not obsessive attentiveness, just honest, active observation and participation. The nonexistence on either side is patient. It will wait. The interruption will not.