The Thoughts Loom

We often talk about individual freedom as if it is something very simple. You have a choice, you make it, and then you live with it. But is it really that simple? What happens when the choice you want to make hurts the people who raised you? What happens when choosing yourself means disappointing your parents? And what if you have been taught, for most of your life, that making your parents unhappy is itself a kind of wrongdoing? Then what exactly are you choosing between? Is it really between what you want and what they want? Or has it slowly become a choice between your own life and your guilt about choosing it ? I think this is where the idea of responsibility becomes much more complicated. We are raised by people who make countless decisions for us before we are capable of making any decisions ourselves. They choose our school, our food, our surroundings, our education, sometimes even the way we are supposed to behave. They do all of this because they are our parents and because th...

  What is waste? It is one of those words we use with remarkable confidence and very little reflection. We waste food, time, opportunities, money, talent and, on particularly difficult days, even our lives. The meaning seems so obvious that the question itself almost feels unnecessary. Yet the more I thought about it, the less obvious it became. "Waste" seems like a simple word, but it depends entirely on what standard you judge it by. Here are a few ways to think about it. Physics: Waste does not really exist. Matter and energy are transformed, not destroyed. What is waste to one process becomes a resource for another. Biology: Waste is a byproduct that an organism cannot use and must expel. Economics: Waste is a resource that has lower value than it could have had. Throwing away edible food is waste because its potential value is lost. Engineering: Waste is inefficiency—energy, material, or time that does not contribute to the desired output. Human life: We usua...

  For the past few months, I have been thinking deeply about life, consciousness, human existence, and the possibility of meaning. My exploration took me through psychology, sociology, evolution, human behavior, and physics. I was searching for a deeper explanation-something that could explain why I exist and what it means to be alive. What I found was not a grand answer hidden somewhere in the universe. Instead, I found myself gradually questioning the assumptions with which I had started. One observation kept appearing repeatedly. People continue living regardless of whether they have discovered a meaning for their lives. Some pursue ambitious goals, some dedicate themselves to family, some seek knowledge, and some simply want a peaceful and ordinary life. Many never consciously search for a deeper purpose at all. Yet they continue to wake up, make decisions, experience emotions, form relationships, and move through the world. Life appears to continue whether meaning has been fou...

  For the past few months, I have been orbiting too much around the concepts of life. I observed, changed, endured, tried to find meaning, happiness, tried to do things that would bring joy. Some did, some didn’t. Finally, I found out that maybe most things are just tricking the brain. Or in other words, there are different perspectives of looking at things, and the perspective a person chooses slowly becomes his identity. For people like me, this ability to think from too many perspectives instead of one has landed me most of the time in dilemma and utter confusion about how to act. Take this example. When I said “fooling the brain,” that itself is just one perspective. Somebody can look at the same thing through the lens of discipline or restraint. Somebody may call it self-control. Somebody may say it is going with the flow. Somebody may simply say it is all about what you choose to think. But hitherto, after all the confusion and thoughts I previously believed in, I realised so...

  Death is beautiful because it is the only thing in life that is completely true. Everything else allows excuses, delays, reinterpretations, and second chances, but death does not. In life, even when you become aware of your actions and observe your thoughts, you still have to live. Awareness changes perception, but it does not free you from your body. You still wake up inside a biological system that consumes energy, does work, repairs itself, breaks again, and repeats. Your mind reads the world while your body carries it, and together they continue this process without pause. Entropy increases, effort continues, and maintenance never really stops. Death skips all of this. It does not require participation, effort, improvement, or understanding. People are born, they suffer, they experience pleasure, boredom, loss, and repetition, and they argue endlessly about pain and suffering because life gives them time to argue. Life is not the same for everyone, and it never has been, but...