REads BY Dre

Chapter 1: The Lure of eternity

This first chapter is about introducing us to the big idea: How we go about finding our purpose in an existence that seems so meaningless. The most fascinating part about this chapter is the mention of evolution and entropy working together to create what we now know as our world, our reality. It indeed is a hot take because those seem to oppose each other, until you think about how evolution can only work in the light of chaos. Everything that exists today is here by pure chance. The impossible is made possible by an instance in where “things” collide and fit together, until they run into other things that either fortifies those groupings or destroys them. In other words, there is so much energy that came out of the big bang, it caused movement in particles and that movement caused things to collide. Collisions led to things either attracting or repelling one another, working harmoniously or opposing each other. To get back to evolutionary terms, every trait that exists today was a genetic mutation or behavioral modification that led to increase in “fitness”. [Fitness:the ability of an organism to pass on its genetic material to its offspring]

But what does this have to do with finding the meaning to life? Well the evolution and entropy that he mentions has led to us, humans, having a conscious self-awareness that has us questioning our past, present, and future. That question about our future is what stands out as Green’s main focus. How can we be so aware of our inevitable death and yet not fall apart? Well, he speculates that we hang on to the idea of living on forever through offspring (family), stories, accomplishments, or religion. We hope that we leave a mark in these ways and live on through small traces of us in history. Sounds doable! …… But Greene argues that nothing is absolute, any trace of us will eventually disappear.

But doesn’t that sound kind of peaceful. For too long Ive been chained to the idea that in order for my life to be consequential, I have to leave a legacy behind. I dreamt of making important scientific discoveries, like designing the devise that decreases all carbon emissions, discovering a new species, or uncovering why the Greenland shark can live for hundreds of years. (Super cool, look it up!). But this idea, we’ve heard it again and again, it frees us from expectations like that and allows us to just live life according to ourselves. Whatever brings meaning to your life is exactly what you should be doing.

Favorite line: “In the end, during our brief moment in the sun, we are tasked with the noble charge of finding our own meaning”