I am deeply in love with science fiction and I recently started a book called “The Star Diaries” by Stanislaw Lem. The story follows the main character, Ijon Tichy, who is an intergalactic space traveller on his journeys throughout, well, the galaxy. The second journey in the book really got me thinking about my life’s journey these last 32 years and my plans moving forward. To set a little context, Ijon is sitting in front of a galactic federation awaiting acceptance of Earth and all its people into this same prestigious federation when an official tells him the real story of the origin of man. Here’s the paragraph in question:

‘Now here we are approached by creatures that have no inkling of the true odiousness of their existence, nor any knowledge of its cause! Now here they come knocking at the venerable door of this Worthy Assembly, and what then, pray, are we to tell them, all these abominoids, howlmouths, freaksnouts, clenchpoops, corpselovers, mothereaters and addlepates, wringing their alleged hands and falling to their alleged knees when they learn that in reality they belong to the subphylum “Artefacta,” and that their supreme and perfect creator was some ship’s cook, who once poured out upon the rocks of a dead planet - a bucket of fermented slops, for his own amusement imparting to that wretched source of life properties which later would make it the laughing-stock of an entire Galaxy! And how, pray, will these poor devils defend themselves when some future Cato throws up to them the shameful levorotarory configuration, yes the left-handedness, of their amino acids!!’ (The hall was all aboil, in vain did the machine repeatedly swing its mallet, they were howling on every side: ‘For shame! Down with - ! Quarantine ‘em! Who is he talking about? Look at the Earthling dissolve, the Meemy is leaking all over!!’)

It’s very interesting to think that what if all of life’s existence was really just a 'happy accident.’ I believe that that this belief can be taken by any individual in two different ways. Either you embrace the ‘happy accident’ and go on with living a life filled with guilt-free adventure and endless trials or take the absurdist route that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe and that right and wrong have no meaning so, fuck it! I chose a long time ago to take the former route. I’ve always been the one to question everything and I try not to take each authority figure’s word at face value. The never-ending search for the meaning of life or love or pleasure is exactly what makes a life, for me, worth living. The philosopher Albert Camus said that individuals should embrace the absurd condition while also defiantly continuing to explore and search for meaning. This is where I find myself currently and why the above passage in this book has drummed up all of these past emotions.

I am going to continue my not-so-aimless wander through life exploring anything and everything at every chance I get. It’s fun and interesting and will hopefully lead to more fun and interesting times in my life. I might sometimes struggle and I might sometimes be sad but these are the challenging times that make the care-free and emotionally uplifting times that much better. As the profound Charles Bukowski once put it, “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”