Why do I want to change the world?
What is the source of my drive?
What is the meaning of life?
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At 19, I had my first existential crisis.
Alone in the Australian bush, I gazed up at a sky scattered with stars. As the universe stared back at me, vast and indifferent, I suddenly felt the crushing weight of existence without meaning.
I've always been that kid who asked "why" about everything. Why do we have to go to school? Why do people work jobs they hate? Why should I care about my future?
If you pick any question and recursively ask "why" enough times, you always reach the same conclusion: life is meaningless.
Lying in the dirt beneath those stars, I couldn't shake a thought that had never seriously crossed my mind before: "What is the point of all this?"
As Camus writes in "The Myth of Sisyphus":
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy."
That night, I chose to live. This choice began my exploration of existentialist philosophy—trying to find purpose in a seemingly purposeless universe.
The question of meaning has haunted humans forever, yet most people dodge it. They typically take one of two routes:
- Outsource it to religion or another group — letting existing structures tell them what matters.
- Don't think about it at all — keeping busy enough that the question never fully forms.
This second approach dominates modern life. We've engineered a world where we can completely avoid existential reflection - our homes shield us from mortality's reminders, our screens distract us from silence, our medical advancements push death from awareness.
Existentialism scares people. The possibility we're just organisms on a rock floating through an indifferent universe is terrifying. Most choose to ignore it.
But that didn't sit well with me. I looked at it right in the face.
And it changed my life.
What Filled the Void?
After staring into the abyss of meaninglessness, an inevitable question follows: what now?
For me, the void had previously been filled with hedonism — chasing pleasure and avoiding pain. It didn't work. The pursuit of happiness became a perpetual treadmill. Hedonic adaptation is a bitch.
So, if not pleasure, what then?
I turned to the existentialist philosophers: Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Schopenhauer. Turns out, these philosophers are brilliant at dissecting the meaninglessness of existence, but surprisingly vague when it comes to what the hell we should actually do about it.
Still, I found one common thread that ran through all their work: we don't discover purpose; we create it.
This is what Sartre means by the "dizzying possibilities" of consciousness. When you realize you can choose anything, be anything, do anything, it's both liberating and terrifying. The universe offers no guidance, just infinite possibility.
Faced with this radical freedom, I couldn't shake the thought that wasting my potential would be the greatest failure. If I can choose to be anything, why not become my best possible self?
This realization led me to improvement—not just ordinary self-improvement, but a drive toward becoming something greater, something akin to Nietzsche's Übermensch.
So I set off to improve everything I could about myself.
What Am I Driving Towards?
With improvement as my driving force, a deeper question emerged: Improvement toward what end? And at what personal cost?
I found myself pulled between two ideals:
- Making a dent in the universe — to create something meaningful, to help others, to leave a legacy beyond myself.
- Live a deeply fulfilling, present life — to flow, to build relationships, to taste existence fully.
This tension isn't new. It runs through many traditions.
- Buddhism points toward present-moment awareness, yet the Bodhisattva vows to help all beings.
- Christianity celebrates both the contemplative monk and the active missionary.
- Modern philosophers debate whether personal fulfillment is enough, or if we're morally obligated to do more.
So where do I land here?
I'm a consequentialist at heart. Utilitarianism informs much of my moral framework. This stems from my metaphysical view (something I’ve written about elsewhere) that we are the universe experiencing itself—one consciousness living many different lives. From this, it logically follows that I should want to elevate the collective human experience.
But at what expense? The people making the biggest dents in the universe often lead terrible lives—stressed, disconnected, and perpetually unsatisfied.
The consequentialist in me wants to maximize collective good, but applying this strictly to my own choices would mean surrendering everything that makes life worth living.
Is it an immutable law that extraordinary impact requires extraordinary sacrifice? If so, what am I willing to give up? This is something I continue to wrestle with daily.
The Dark Side of Improvement
So, I've figured out what drives me, and what it's directed towards. But there's a shadow side of improvement itself.
The first is that it doesn't turn off. Like, ever.
Once I trained myself to spot flaws and seek improvement, I started seeing everything as a system to optimize:
- Every minute of silence filled with 2x speed podcasts
- Every workout calculated for perfect efficiency
- Every relationship analyzed for the highest-leverage way to build rapport
Even my free time becomes optimized—I've caught myself planning the most efficient route through a museum instead of getting lost in the art.
The second downside: happiness is found in the present, but when I'm striving, I'm constantly living in the future. "What could I improve for next time" becomes the endless refrain in my head. This makes celebrating achievements nearly impossible. I move the goalposts so quickly that I rarely appreciate how far I've come.
The final downside is perhaps the most damaging: this relentless drive to improve comes coupled with a merciless internal monologue. When I've trained myself to be critical of everything, that critical voice doesn't distinguish between my work and my worth. Make a small mistake, and that voice is there, ready to remind me how I've fallen short.
I find myself wondering:
- Can I savor success while maintaining momentum?
- Can I selectively apply this optimization lens to certain areas but not others?
- Can I embrace self-acceptance without sacrificing growth?
What's next?
Improvement—mine and humanity's—became my bulwark against that silent, star-studded void I faced at nineteen. It gave me a reason to wake up excited each morning in a universe that offers no inherent purpose.
What concerns me is that existential struggle will only become more common. As AI transforms work and religion continues its decline, the traditional sources of meaning are fading, but the questions remain.
So I'll keep improving, keep questioning—not because I've found the answer, but because I've found my answer, at least for now. And perhaps by sharing it, I might help someone else find theirs :)
