God is dead.
So why do we keep living?

2 min read

"God is dead."

It's one of the most famous lines Nietzsche ever wrote.

But it doesn't simply say "there is no God." It puts a far more frightening question in front of us.

For a long time, people had reasons to live. For God. For family. For the nation. For society. To live well. To be a good person.

There was something bigger than ourselves. And that bigger something told us, "This is how you should live," and "This has value."

So what happens when we can no longer believe in any of that as absolute?

That is the problem waiting on the other side of "God is dead."

Where is the meaning of life?

Wake up. Go to work or school. Eat. Look at your phone. Talk to someone. Sleep. And then it's morning again.

We repeat this for decades. But at some moment, we stop.

"What is all this for, anyway?"

To make money? To be happy? To raise a family? To achieve something?

Then why do we need to be happy? Why do we need to achieve anything?

Keep asking "why?" and eventually you reach a place where there is no answer.

The universe doesn't explain to each of us what we're living for. Nobody hands you a slip of paper at birth that says, "Here is the meaning of your life."

And yet we live. I find that strange.

Why are you alive?

Suppose there was never a meaning decided in advance.

Then why did you get up today? Why do we fall for someone? Why do we make things? Why do we stop in front of a beautiful view? Why do we play a song we love one more time? Why do we make plans for tomorrow?

Why do we keep living, when we don't know what life means?

Maybe "life has no meaning" and "life has no value" are not the same thing.

Precisely because meaning isn't decided in advance, there is room left to make it ourselves.

What to look at. Who to live with. What to love. What to make. What to leave behind.

Maybe meaning comes into our lives one of those choices at a time.