Sea Toads Explain the Meaning of Life
Maybe it’s depressing… maybe it’s liberating. It’s impossible to say.
I was watching the BBC’s Blue Planet II the other day (narrated by the glorious voice of Sir David Attenborough).
Episode 2 features a strange creature living at the bottom of the deep sea called the sea toad. It has a large frown, feet(!), and — as Attenborough proclaims — “infinite patience.”
From my estimation, it spends the majority of its life simply sitting on the floor, waiting to ambush food which wanders too close.
This got me thinking: “What is the purpose of this creature’s life?” Apparently, it is mere survival. It exists simply to survive.
Naturally, this got me thinking about the purpose of humans. We run around all day, working hard, partying hard, buying stuff we don’t need, grinding away at jobs we hate, talking to people we mostly despise. What is the purpose of all this?
If we appeared on an alien series entitled Human Planet, it would seem our purpose is to make money. Fair enough, we as humans have developed a system whereby we trade money for life-sustaining products, such as food and shelter. But beyond that?
What is the greater purpose of a flat-screen TV? Or a fancy new SUV? Or an extension onto our already way too big house? This is going far, far beyond mere survival. I understand earning more than you need in the immediate future so we can continue to survive into old age, but this has gotten out of control.
It’s as though our hubris levels have reached fever pitch and we humans believe we have a purpose greater than that of the deep-dwelling sea toad.
But why are we any better than it? Who’s to say our lives have a critical cosmic importance and the sea toad is just some insignificant organism whose existence doesn’t affect the universe one way or the other?
Well, guess what? One day, the star we orbit (which we have titled “The Sun”, as if there’s only one and it’s all ours!) is going to explode.
On that day, humans and sea toads will equally be turned to something smaller than dust. (Not that we’ll survive even close to that long in the first place.)
And what’s the greater purpose of that, I wonder?
What are you gonna do with your boats and your cottages on the lakes and your fancy three-piece suits when our star goes literal supernova and the only home we’ve ever known is completely erased from any semblance of any history book that ever existed?
I’m not saying all this to be depressing. I’m genuinely curious — what is the purpose? What can we really do besides merely survive as long as we can and not worry about the rest?
Just waiting, waiting… on this backwater of a planet — no different, no better, and no more important than that lowly sea toad 1000s of metres below the surface of the sea.
*
