Everything’s okay.

Nothing, in the end, when you get right down to it, matters. Sure, they matter to you, but that doesn’t mean they, you know, matter. Everyone has concerns, fears, good times and bad times. While your own personal experiences and those of the people closest to you mean something to you, they don’t to most people. Widen your perspective a little. Whatever you do today, and whatever happens to you, will have no effect on the sun coming up in the morning. It’ll have no effect on the Andromeda galaxy, which is, arguably, more important by virtue of taking up more space than you do. What effect do you think you have on the universe at large, compared to what effect it has on you? We inhabit such a microscopically tiny and unimportant corner of the universe that the idea that all of that was created just so we could have a half-decent view at night makes the idea of the creator myth found at the heart of most religions ludicrous. None of it matters.

While it might sound rather depressing to some, to me that is a great source of comfort. To feel confident that this life isn’t just a test to see if you can make it into to an invite-only everlasting heaven is pretty damn freeing. Plus, even heavenly bliss is bound to get boring if it never ends, don’t you think?

I’m married, have children, family and friends. They all matter to me, and I matter to them, but I’m not arrogant enough to think that we matter in other terms. If I disappeared tomorrow along with everyone important to me, do you really think the universe would give a shit? So, what’s to stop me from doing whatever – shotgun rampage, stop going into work, stop paying my TV licence, walk naked down a busy street and dry-hump a tramp? Where’s my sense of morality? Well, it's probably some complex question of evolution that we’ll never really understand completely, but that doesn’t matter. The way I see it, it doesn’t really matter that it doesn’t matter. That sounds a bit silly, I know, but if I’m too unimportant to affect a cold uncaring universe, then all that really exists for me is my smaller, immediate universe. Andromeda is out there, but so what? So just because it is impossible to affect things on a large scale, it doesn’t mean there’s no reason to care on a smaller scale. There’s no reason not to do your best to positively affect the minute pocket of universe you exist in. Just take comfort in the fact that if somehow you fail, the universe won’t condemn you for it; it won’t even notice.

If what you do doesn’t matter, then all that matters is what you do.