It's the question that won't leave us alone. We ask it as children, and our parents give us answers that stop working. We ask it as teenagers, and we get religion or rebellion. We ask it as adults, usually at 3am or after someone dies, and we realize we still don't know.
Why are we here?
Let's actually sit with this question instead of rushing to an answer.
The Answers That Don't Work Anymore
For most of human history, the answer was simple: God put us here. We exist to worship, to be tested, to earn our place in an afterlife. This answer worked for billions of people for thousands of years.
But for many of us, it doesn't work anymore. Not because we're smarter than our ancestors - we're not - but because we know things they didn't. We know the universe is 13.8 billion years old. We know humans evolved from earlier life forms over millions of years. We know Earth is one planet among trillions in a universe so vast it breaks our intuitions.
The old story - that a God created all this specifically for us, that we're the point of the whole cosmic show - feels harder to believe when you understand the scale.
The Answer That Feels Empty
So maybe there's no reason. Maybe we're just atoms that happened to arrange themselves into thinking meat. Maybe "why" is a question that doesn't apply to the universe - it just is, and we just are, and that's it.
This is the scientific materialist answer, and it might be technically accurate. But for most people, it doesn't satisfy. Not because it's wrong, but because it doesn't address what we're actually asking.
When we ask "why are we here," we're not really asking for a causal explanation. We're asking: does my existence matter? Is there something I'm supposed to be doing? How should I live?
"You're atoms, there's no purpose, deal with it" doesn't answer those questions. It just dismisses them.
Reframing the Question
Here's a different approach: what if "why are we here" is the wrong question?
The question assumes there's a "why" built into the universe - a purpose we're supposed to discover, like finding a note left by the manufacturer. But what if purpose doesn't work that way?
Think about it: when you ask why a hammer exists, you're asking about the intention of the person who made it. But the universe wasn't made by a person. It doesn't have intentions in that sense. Asking "why does the universe exist" might be like asking "what's north of the North Pole" - grammatically correct but fundamentally confused.
Maybe the question isn't "why are we here" but "what do we do now that we're here?"
The Remarkable Fact of Your Existence
Before we rush to meaning, let's pause on something extraordinary: you exist.
For 13.8 billion years, the universe existed with no one to experience it. Stars formed and exploded. Galaxies collided. Chemistry happened on countless worlds. But there was no awareness, no experience, no one to notice any of it.
Then, on at least one planet, matter organized itself in such a way that it became aware. The universe developed eyes to see itself, minds to understand itself, hearts to feel itself.
You are that. You are the universe experiencing itself. Not metaphorically - literally. The atoms in your body were forged in stars. The patterns in your brain are patterns in the universe. When you look at the night sky, the universe is looking at itself.
That's not nothing. That's remarkable. And it happened without anyone planning it.
Purpose Without a Purposer
Here's the key insight: purpose doesn't require a purposer.
A river doesn't need someone to design it to have a direction. An ecosystem doesn't need a creator to have balance and function. Complex systems can have purpose-like properties without anyone intending them.
You're a complex system. You have drives, values, things you care about. These emerged from evolution, culture, and your own experience - not from a divine blueprint. But they're real. Your sense that some things matter more than others isn't an illusion. It's how meaning actually works.
The purpose of your life isn't written somewhere waiting to be discovered. It's something you create through how you live. That's not a consolation prize - that's actually more meaningful than following someone else's script.
What Pantheism Offers
There's a worldview that takes all this seriously - the scale of the universe, the absence of a personal God, the reality of your experience - without collapsing into 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.
In this view, you're not here for a reason in the sense of a cosmic assignment. But you're not meaningless either. You're the universe becoming conscious, creating meaning, experiencing itself. That's your role - not because someone assigned it, but because that's what you are.
Practical Implications
So what does this mean for how you actually live?
1. You Get to Choose
Without a pre-assigned purpose, you're free to decide what matters. This is terrifying and liberating. Your life is a blank canvas, not a coloring book.
2. Connection Matters
If we're all expressions of the same universe, then your relationships aren't just nice - they're encounters with other forms of yourself. Kindness isn't just moral duty; it's recognition of unity.
3. Experience Is the Point
If the universe spent billions of years developing the capacity for experience, then experience itself might be the closest thing to a "purpose." Not achievement, not legacy, but the actual living of life - seeing, feeling, loving, wondering.
4. You Don't Have to Figure It All Out
The question "why are we here" might not have a final answer. And that's okay. You can live a meaningful life while holding the big questions open. Certainty isn't required.
A Different Kind of Answer
Why are we here? Maybe we're here to experience. To connect. To create. To wonder. To love. Not because someone assigned these purposes, but because these are what matter to beings like us - and we get to decide what matters.
The Question That Remains
I can't tell you why you're here. No one can. The universe doesn't come with instructions.
But I can tell you this: you're here. That's certain. You're a pattern of matter and energy that somehow became aware, that can ask questions, that can love and create and wonder. You're the universe looking at itself and asking what it all means.
Maybe that's not an answer. Maybe it's something better - an invitation. You're here. What are you going to do with it?
"We are the universe experiencing itself, briefly, before the pattern dissolves and reforms into something new. What we do with that experience - that's up to us."
