Life, Meaning, and Purpose

What do you think—does life have meaning?
Or do you simply want it to?

Because if life has no purpose… do you matter?

Let me tell you a story.

When I was diagnosed with a serious illness and scheduled for surgery, I was in Poland. Communicating with the doctors was difficult, and they made it painfully clear that the chances of success were slim.

They took me to the operating room. It had a high ceiling, cold walls tiled like a slaughterhouse. I lay there—naked—while they prepared their tools, inspecting them like instruments of torture. Just as the anesthesiologist was about to begin, someone burst in and said:
“Stop.”

There was an emergency. Another patient had a rupture requiring immediate surgery.

So they wheeled me out and left me in another room—bare, cold, empty, with that same eerie high ceiling. I lay there for two hours. And I cannot explain the feeling.

I began to wonder: What if these are my final moments? What if I never wake up?

My mind wandered. I saw my body disintegrating. I thought, I’m made of cells—what if each cell holds a sliver of my consciousness? But the cells die too.

Then I thought of atoms, and the particles that make me. What if they carry my essence? When I die, I’ll scatter across the universe—drifting, becoming part of the cosmic system.

I imagined all my particles floating in infinite darkness, at the edge of the universe.
It was silent.
Utterly dark.
But somehow… it was okay.
There was peace. No more pain. No longing. No fear.
No expectations.

And that, I realized, is the truth about death.

Unlike religion’s promise of an afterlife—heaven and hell—I began to understand something different.

As a child, I used to explore my father’s library. I remember one book based on the Quran. It had vivid illustrations of hell and heaven. Hell was terrifying—even more so for a young girl. But heaven? It was a dark forest, a still, black lake—things I feared even more.
Those images haunted me.

I wondered: What if both heaven and hell are dangerous places? What if I don’t want to go to either?

For over a decade, I carried that fear of the afterlife.
In the way Islam depicted it, it always felt like it wasn’t meant for me—it was for men.

When I finally let go of the religion, I felt something liberating.
Now, I could die… and have no expectations.
No judgment.
No reward.
No punishment.
Just… nothingness.

I survived the surgery—and all the complications that followed.
But something had changed.

I realized: when life has no transcendent purpose, it becomes simpler.
Occam’s Razor, after all, favors the simpler explanation.

Life is a process.
Eventually, it ends.
Nothing is immortal—not even the universe.

And maybe… that’s okay.

Because even if there is no divine reason—each life still matters.
We give it meaning.
We choose to make it matter.