🌌 The Boy, the Girl, and the Void: A Story About Meaning

There once was a boy who believed every moment in life should mean something — something grand. He chased purpose like a shadow: a perfect career, the right decisions, the “one true path.” He thought there had to be a plan — if only he could decode it.

And then he met a girl.

She was different. She laughed at the stars, danced in the rain, and didn’t seem bothered by the absence of deeper meaning. When he asked her, “Don’t you want life to mean something?”, she smiled gently and replied, “Maybe the beauty is that it doesn’t — but we’re here anyway.”

That one sentence hit him harder than any philosophy book.

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📚 Existentialism and Absurdism: Two Ways to Face the Void

The boy and the girl aren’t just characters. They’re metaphors for two powerful philosophies: existentialism and absurdism.

Both start at the same unsettling truth: the universe offers no manual. There is no cosmic instruction booklet, no pre-written destiny. We are born, we live, we die — and the stars don’t blink.

But from that same silence, these two philosophies chart different courses:

• The boy is the existentialist. He believes that even if life has no inherent meaning, we must create it. Our choices matter. Our freedom defines us. As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

• The girl is the absurdist. She accepts that meaning might never come. But instead of despair, she chooses revolt. She embraces life’s fleeting beauty. She finds joy not in answers — but in the absurd struggle itself, just like Camus’ Sisyphus, eternally pushing the boulder, smiling at the effort.

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💬 The Real Question Is… Who Are You?

We all meet the void at some point.

It’s there when you ask yourself:

• What should I do with my life?

• What if none of this matters?

• What if I fail?

That’s where philosophy stops being a subject — and starts becoming a mirror.

In those moments, existentialism hands you a pen and says: Write your story.
Absurdism hands you a flower and says: Enjoy the moment anyway.

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🎭 The Performance We Live

I recently gave a presentation where I didn’t start with bullet points or philosopher bios. I started with this story of the boy and the girl. Not to simplify the ideas — but to humanize them.

Philosophy isn’t just for bookshelves. It’s for heartbreak, boredom, big decisions, sleepless nights. It’s for that strange sense that you’re alive in a world that doesn’t always make sense.

So instead of saying, “Existentialism is X and absurdism is Y,” I said:

• The boy needed to believe there was a right path.

• The girl knew the road was meaningless — but walked anyway.

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🧭 Where Does That Leave Us?

Maybe life isn’t about choosing one or the other.
Maybe it’s about balancing both.

Be the boy: take responsibility.
Be the girl: don’t wait for permission to live.

Make meaning — or don’t. But don’t close your eyes to the absurd. Open them wide. Laugh. Choose. Exist.

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🌠 Final Thought

“In a world without meaning, we are free to give our own.”

The universe may never explain itself. But maybe — just maybe — the fact that we’re here, asking, struggling, laughing, loving... that’s enough.

And so, under the same silent sky, the boy and the girl walk on.

Not because they found the answer.

But because they found life.