How to keep living when you feel like dying.

Embracing the absurd & Everything Everywhere All At Once

Life is hard. Wait, no, that’s not dire enough. *Clears throat*—Life is harrowing and absurd, and weird. Maybe I’m jaded (I am). Maybe my neurodivergent burnout is scrambling my brain like an egg (it is). Or maybe life just really sucks (it does), but I’ve not been having a great time thanks to my perpetual sadgurl feels. I’m tired of living like this!

The Absurdity of Everything Everywhere All At Once

By now, you’ve probably heard about the multiverse-hopping movie Everything Everywhere All At Once. In it, a middle-aged Chinese woman is tasked with saving the Universe. She hops through time and space battling the murderous Jobu Tupaki—a being searching for life’s meaning.

The problem is—life has no meaning. At least in the world of EEAAO. And this realization that there may be no inherent meaning, no shiny, golden Answer™, drives Jobu Tupaki to create The Bagel.

The Bagel has everything on it. Every universe, every being, everything just sucked into a freshly-baked black hole of nihilism. If Jobu Tupaki enters the bagel, she will cease to exist and be free from a meaningless reality. In every universe, everywhere. It’s more than a death. It’s a complete wipe of her entire existence.

As I was watching the movie, I willed Jobu Tupaki to walk through the black hole. In my mind, it would solve every problem by ensuring there was never one to begin with. Who needs answers with no questions? Who needs meaning with no existence? And if you never existed you can never die. No one would have to mourn you. You wouldn’t leave behind a pit of grief. I sat at the edge of my seat, hoping she’d make it through. I didn’t realize at the time how nihilistic I’d become. How badly I wanted an existence-wiping bagel for myself.

But Jobu doesn’t walk through the black hole.

Instead, she’s embraced by her mother and reminded that if life is absurd, if there aren’t any answers, then it’s us who assigns meaning to it. When we give our lives meaning, even the smallest act of kindness can become a profound expression of love that transcends time and space. A day with friends can become an epic otherworldly adventure. A deep belly laugh can shake the shackles of nihilism loose, allowing us to see beyond the bagel.

So, how to keep living when you feel like dying?

You just keep living. And loving the people who love you. And having new adventures. And creating just for yourself. And creating for others. And doing whatever warms your heart because, in a universe where nothing really matters, those are the ‘little things’ that breathe life into us.

I’ve personally lost years of my life to my depression and nihilism. I’ve lost time and things I may never get back. Or maybe I will! Because life is absurd like that. And if I keep digging, who knows what I’ll find?

If you like the absurdity of Everything Everywhere All At Once? Then you’ll love my book How to Be a Better Adult! Read it, and thank me later <3

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