I think one of the ultimate thesis statements of tma is that, even if it doesn’t matter, it matters. your life may be controlled by forces beyond your comprehension, the outcomes may more or less be decided already, and you may be doomed to ultimately fail whenever you try to enact good, but it still matters that you tried. or, that you didn’t try. or, that you stopped trying. your suffering and your joy and your kindness and your cruelty still have meaning and value, nothing can be defined by its ultimate fate alone, and submission to a predetermined path is as much a choice as resistance. sure, you’re on a journey to tragedy, but on that journey you might fall in love, or you might become a better version of yourself, or you might betray people’s trust, or you might decide to take up serial killing, the options are as endless as they are worthless as they are vital. you are cosmically insignificant, but you aren’t living on a cosmic scale, you’re living on a human one. so tell me: the train’s coming down the tracks, and the lever is right in front of you. you know you could turn and run and not have to watch, and you know the lever’s probably jammed up with spiderwebs, anyway. you know that it might just give way if you slam your whole body into it, and you know that even if you succeed you’ll still be responsible for a tragedy. do you try?
Like the man says: “our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.”
[ID: screenshot from the unofficial transcript of MAG 151, “Big Picture.” MARTIN is saying “I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.”]
(it’s so funny to me that Simon Fairchild immediately calls this “a lonely way to look at things.” To me, it’s always seemed anything but. What matters is that you — we — were here, experiencing, making meaning. Even if it’s lost, it matters that it happened.)
