To dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free

It's an inescapable fact that the Cosmos will die. After an unimaginable length of time, approximately 10,000 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion years even the last black hole will evaporate and the universe will reach absolute zero. The universe will die, at which point nothing changes and time ceases to exist. As a fraction of the lifespan of the universe, measured from it's beginning to it's end, life as we know it is only possible for

one thousandth of a billion billion billionth
billion billion billionth
billion billion billionth of a percent

Read that again. That is the fraction of time that life may exist in the universe. Makes it all seem so infinitesimally small. Completely insignificant. So why are we here at all? What is the meaning of life? Why is it hard?

My friend Chris posed this question to me during a recent conversation. I gave him my answer as this:

We must move away from the decadence in which we currently live. People are not genuine. No one "shows" who they really are, or embraces all the "ugly" parts of themselves. People worry too much what others think and for the most part use each other as a means to an end. They seek validation but not genuine bonds or possibly everlasting ones; like love. It's hard because too often we allow fear to dictate the rules by which we'll play. A culture of decadence that celebrates and condones rampant consumerism and over the top idolatry of false gods that most often manifests themselves in things such as massive houses, obscene jewelry and generally flashy opulence. No one lets their heart guide the way. We don't look at each other and value the human, rather we ask what value can that person add to our lives. We ask all the wrong questions, such as am I making enough money?what will people think of me if I _________? vs asking ourselves if we are spending time on the things that matter, am i enriching the lives of those I love and care about, have I told/shown them?

We must recognize that what we can feel is all that matters because people will soon forget what you say about them but they will always remember how you made them feel. What someone does speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what they say. To be selfless, to sincerely value someone else's worth far beyond your own, that's true meaning. When we die, that inescapable end, our love is what can make us immortal. Being remembered in the hearts of those you touched, whose lives you bettered simply by being in it....."you" live on in that way. For what we have once enoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us.

To hold a hand and to never really let go is the most beautifully simple act we are capable of. To look at that person, in even the darkest of times, times so dark that a thousand supernovas could not illuminate it.....to look at them and be a source of light enabling them to navigate the darkness is the single best thing you can ever be. Because, especially fucking because, we can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in darkness. To be that light, that miracle, you move from insignificance to transcendence. That has to be the answer.