Roses Are Red; Violets Are Blue; Your Life Is Meaningless; Oh, But Is That Really True?

An aimless, young man visits a wise, old sage. The man feels alone, lost and unrecognized for his art. He fears living a quiet, unceremonious life and leaving no legacy behind.

The sage exhales deeply and tells the young man a story.

“Our sun and all the stars are conscious,” the sage said. “They can feel love, passion, hate, desire, all of it. One day, our very own sun felt just as you do now. The sun looked out in every direction of the cosmos and saw many stars, especially stars bigger and brighter than itself.”

“And the sun thought, ‘I am utterly average. I have a planet and a moon, but so do all the other stars. One day, my light will extinguish. I’ll collapse, only to become a floating ball of hydrogen and helium. The cosmic winds will scatter what’s left of me across the galaxy. I’ll disappear from the solar system. Not a single trace of my identity will be left behind. I am totally meaningless.’

With that, the sun cast its gaze down. ‘I burn for nothing and no one,’ the sun weeped.

From its vantage point, our sun can not see all the life that rests upon its shoulders. Every single human being, plant and animal, all history and science, every last drop of art, and countless experiences of love and passion, owe everything to the sun. But our sun will die feeling totally absurd and irrelevant.”

Like the sun, all life might rest on your shoulders. Or, maybe you are just another random, insignificant star.

This is not an invitation to believe that you are important. Because you may only be a decaying sack of cells, heaped together inside a rotting body.

Some people cradle the belief that they have a divine, cosmic purpose. Others skip through the streets, eager to tell themselves and anyone who will listen that nothing matters, that their puny, individual life can’t matter. These dueling gospels are equally egotistical.

Both assume that you can perceive far more about life than you can. You may truly be the main star of this reality. Perhaps this is all just a simulated version of “The Truman Show.” Or maybe you’re just a cobweb, and sooner or later the world will brush you aside.

We just can’t know how we fit into this world. Because each one of us has such a narrow perspective on the complete picture of reality. To decide whether to see yourself as everything or nothing misses the point — we don’t know either way.

Let’s acknowledge our ignorance. Let’s dance to the tune of bewilderment.

In 1945, The Gospel of Thomas was discovered in Egypt. It contains 114 sayings credited to Jesus. These sayings don’t fall cleanly in line with traditional Christian dogma, which could be why you haven’t heard of them.

In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All.”

Fear of god, awe of creation, awareness of ignorance — it’s all the same motive. God is a question mark.