How would you answer that question? I think as a religious person, I instinctively think that the things I do, do in fact matter. But if in fact the universe is a cold and mostly empty place then more than likely nothing you do matters very much.

This, according to writer Oliver Burkeman in his book 4000 weeks¹, is ‘unexpectedly liberating…[because] when it comes to how you’re using your finite time, the universe absolutely could note care less.’

This should be a relief to us, a form of ‘cosmic insignificance therapy’, as it lifts impossible burdens to make everything count. You will almost certainly not put a ‘dent in the universe’ and so from that big cosmic perspective then going for a walk, reading a book, hanging out with your kids is just as meaningful as, well anything else, given everything will be forgotten and nothing really matters.

In Burkeman’s eyes this is a kind of great cosmic levelling down. We’re freed from trying to do something really impressive with our lives because frankly everything from a cosmic perspective is just as meaningful and marvellous as everything else. Just being here is a marvel and so whatever you do, whether you appreciate that marvel or not, is of equal worth. Which is to say they are of no real worth, except to you and whoever or whatever you decide matters to you.

Burkeman can’t quite hold this line consistently though. He still seems to believe in something called goodness: ‘any career might be a worthwhile way to spend a working life, if it makes things slightly better for those it serves.’ But why? What if my career works for me but makes things slightly worse for everyone else? Why, in the end, should I care? What if it makes things a lot worse. Again why care? The universe does not, will not, so why should I?

Indeed in the very next chapter he asks the reader to take a longer view of their life and see the value of investing in things that may bear fruit after they die, laying the stones of a cathedral as it were. We should search for alien life, or raise children (which may sometimes feel like both of those things) because they are worthwhile even though we will not see the finished result.

And Burkeman still seems to believe that, and I agree with him here, that the world is both broken and beautiful. But, I wonder, on what basis does Burkeman think it is broken? Certainly not from the point of the empty universe which chews up planets for breakfast and certainly does not care about the fate of this particularly small and insignificant one.

If Burkeman was as brutally honest about the implications of this ‘universe doesn’t care’ as he refreshingly is about the shortness of our lives, then any notion of morality simply evaporates into so much space dust. Save a million, kill a million, what’s ultimately the difference? As Stalin is reported to have said, ‘If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics’ and who is the universe to disagree? The universe simply doesn’t care.

The universe does not care about the individual tragedy, does not care about climate change, nuclear war, divorce, abortion, Donald Trump, woke, the rise of the far right, Israel or Hamas so chill out and don’t get so worked up. There is no zen, there is no hope, there is just this life, this moment and it really doesn’t matter what you do. Do nothing, do anything, do something great, do something awful, none of it really matters. Not in the end. Who cares if people remember you as evil, not the universe. Who cares if people remember you as a saint, not the universe. Everything will ultimately be forgotten by a universe that will probably carry on for billions of years after this planet has disappeared.

It’s a uniquely awful solution to the problem of evil that suggests there really is no evil. I think it’s the sort of thing that most people who consider Buddhism haven’t really thought about. Their suffering is only suffering because they’re attached to things or people. What kind of solution is it in this life to tell people that the way forward is to stop loving the people they love and that the evil they feel is illusory?

Burkeman seems drawn to Buddhism, here and there, in bits, in a pick and mix kind of way but the logic he shares is something I think he would actually shy away from. That the universe absolutely does not care if something awful happened to the children he loves so deeply and would not even recognise it as awful. It was just another thing that happened that didn’t really matter.

That we feel, that we deep down believe in beauty, and goodness, that we love not just family but love stranger, neighbour, enemy is not an evolutionary illusion. Or at least if it is it absolutely will not make the world a better place to believe that to be true. Instead that we love nature, creation, the stars and the plants, the ants and the elephant and can see in each one something marvellous and mysterious is surely a clue that we, and therefore the universe are not the only things that are. That there is also an I AM.

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