It hits you at 2am, or in the shower, or while sitting in traffic. Suddenly the question lands: What's the point of any of this? Your job, your relationships, your plans - they all seem absurd. You're a tiny creature on a rock hurtling through infinite space. In a hundred years, no one will remember you existed.
Welcome to an existential crisis. You're in good company - most thoughtful people have them. And despite how it feels right now, this might actually be the beginning of something meaningful.
What's Actually Happening
An existential crisis is what happens when the stories you've been telling yourself about life stop working. Maybe you achieved the goal and felt empty. Maybe someone died and the world kept spinning. Maybe you just looked up one day and thought, "Wait, is this it?"
The old frameworks - success, religion, social approval, whatever you were using to make sense of things - suddenly feel hollow. You're seeing through them. And what you see on the other side is... nothing. Just existence, raw and unexplained.
This is terrifying. But it's also honest. You're seeing something true: that the meanings you've been living by were constructed, not given. That the universe doesn't come with instructions.
The Trap of Nihilism
When the old meanings collapse, the obvious conclusion is: nothing matters. Life is meaningless. We're just atoms bouncing around until we die.
This is nihilism, and it's a natural stopping point. But it's not the only option, and it's not where you have to stay.
Here's the thing about nihilism: it's actually making a claim. It's saying that because the universe doesn't hand us meaning on a platter, meaning doesn't exist. But that's a leap. It's like saying that because there's no "correct" way to paint, art doesn't exist.
The absence of given meaning doesn't prove the absence of all meaning. It just means meaning works differently than you thought.
What If Meaninglessness Is the Starting Point?
Here's a different way to look at it: the universe doesn't come with built-in meaning. That's true. But you're part of the universe. And you create meaning constantly - in your relationships, your work, your experiences, your love.
The meaning isn't out there waiting to be discovered. It emerges from the interaction between you and existence. You're not finding meaning; you're making it. And that's not a consolation prize - that's actually more remarkable.
Think about it: the universe existed for 13.8 billion years with no one to appreciate it. Then matter organized itself in such a way that it could experience beauty, feel love, ask questions about its own existence. You are the universe becoming aware of itself - and deciding what matters.
The Cosmic Perspective
Yes, you're small. Cosmically, unimaginably small. The universe is vast beyond comprehension, and it will continue long after you're gone.
But here's what that perspective misses: you're not separate from that vastness. You're part of it. The atoms in your body were forged in stars. The water in your cells has been cycling through the planet for billions of years. You're not a visitor to the universe - you are the universe, temporarily organized into this particular form.
Your smallness isn't a problem to solve. It's a fact to integrate. And when you really sit with it, something shifts. The pressure to be cosmically significant lifts. You don't have to matter to the whole universe. You can just matter here, now, to the people and things you touch.
What Actually Helps
If you're in the middle of an existential crisis, here are some things that might help:
1. Stop Fighting It
The crisis is showing you something true - that the old meanings weren't ultimate. Resisting this insight just prolongs the suffering. Let the old frameworks fall. You can build new ones.
2. Get Out of Your Head
Existential crises live in abstract thought. They dissolve in direct experience. Go outside. Feel the sun. Watch water move. Touch a tree. These experiences are real in a way that thoughts about meaninglessness aren't.
3. Connect with Others
Isolation amplifies existential dread. Other people remind you that meaning exists in relationship. A conversation, a shared meal, helping someone - these create meaning in real time.
4. Create Something
Making things is meaning-generating. Write, draw, build, cook, garden - anything. Creation is the opposite of nihilism. It's saying "this matters enough to bring into existence."
5. Embrace Impermanence
Part of the crisis is grief about mortality and change. But impermanence is what makes things precious. A sunset matters because it fades. Love matters because it's finite. Your life matters because it ends.
Quick Grounding Exercise
When existential dread hits, try this:
- 1. Take three slow breaths
- 2. Name five things you can see right now
- 3. Remember: you are the universe experiencing this moment
- 4. Ask: what small thing could I do right now that feels meaningful?
- 5. Do that thing
A Different Framework
There's a worldview that takes the existential crisis seriously - that doesn't pretend the old answers still work - but also doesn't stop at nihilism. It's called pantheism.
Pantheism says: the universe itself is what's sacred. Not a God outside it, not a meaning imposed on it, but existence itself - the whole vast, ancient, ongoing process that you're part of.
This doesn't give you a pre-packaged purpose. But it gives you context. You're not a meaningless accident in an indifferent void. You're the universe experiencing itself, creating meaning, asking questions, feeling awe. That's not nothing. That's remarkable.
The Crisis as Opportunity
Here's the secret about existential crises: they're often the beginning of a deeper, more authentic life. The old meanings had to fall so you could build something real.
Before the crisis, you were living on borrowed meaning - stories you inherited, goals society handed you, frameworks you never questioned. Now you have the chance to choose your own.
This is harder. There's no authority to tell you you're doing it right. But it's also more honest. The meaning you create after an existential crisis is yours. It's not a hand-me-down. It's something you built from the raw material of your own existence.
You're Not Broken
If you're having an existential crisis, you're not broken. You're not depressed (though that can co-occur). You're not losing your mind.
You're waking up. You're seeing through the comfortable illusions that most people never question. That's disorienting, but it's also the beginning of wisdom.
The crisis doesn't last forever. The raw, groundless feeling softens. New meanings emerge - not the naive meanings of before, but meanings you've chosen, tested, made your own.
You're a temporary pattern in an eternal process. A wave in an infinite ocean. The universe, briefly, looking at itself and wondering what it all means.
That's not meaningless. That's the most meaningful thing there is.
When to Seek Help
Existential crises are normal, but they can sometimes overlap with depression or anxiety disorders. If you're experiencing:
- Persistent hopelessness that doesn't lift
- Thoughts of self-harm
- Inability to function in daily life
- Symptoms lasting more than a few weeks
Please reach out to a mental health professional. Philosophical perspectives can complement treatment, but they're not a substitute for it when you need clinical support.
