The God Aspect: The Responsibility of Being
I have always believed meaning is an illusion. If nothing lasts, if time erases everything, then what is the point? Nihilism felt like the only honest conclusion. But something changed. What kicked off this change was something far simpler than a grand revelation.
One morning, I woke up with an overwhelming sense of presence. I had dreamt very lively and experienced a feeling of peace and surrender. The content of the dream itself did not matter as much. What mattered was the transition, the moment I became aware of reality again, when being felt more real than any thought, memory, or belief. For a few seconds, there was no search for meaning, no analyzing, no questioning. Just the pure experience of existing. For the first time in a long time, my mind was quiet. Probably, I was just numb from waking up, but the feeling lingered.
It felt like a milestone in how I perceived life, something I could not ignore. Time passed, and after countless moments of mental gymnastics, I realized that if meaning is an illusion, then the closest we can come to it is the simple fact of being itself and embracing it. Not passively, but as a responsibility. That, to me, was the God Aspect.
We’re inherent seekers of purpose
We search for meaning in many ways: through gods and myths, through science and reason, through philosophy and introspection. Each path attempts to answer the same fundamental questions. What is real? What is our reason for being?
At the foundation of all these pursuits lies the God Aspect. It is not a deity or a belief system, but the fundamental reality of being itself. It is the one certainty that remains when all interpretations fall away. We perceive the here and now through existence. But this so called existence is not passive. It carries with it the responsibility to engage, to participate, to live rather than merely observe.
Being as the closest thing to undeniable truth
Reality is elusive. The mind constructs narratives, science uncovers patterns, and religions propose higher orders of meaning. But when every framework and assumption is stripped away, something remains: the direct experience of existence.
To be is to participate in reality, whether one understands it or not. Some believe in gods, others deny them, and some remain uncertain, but all of these are engagements with the same existential fact. We are here, or at least perceive it this way. Even skepticism does not escape this truth. To question reality is still to exist within it.
But presence is not just something to be acknowledged. It is something to be lived. If existence is the foundation, then how we engage with it matters. Whether through action, creation, or connection, being is not merely a state. It is an ongoing responsibility.
This is the God Aspect. Not a force. Not a being. But the simple, undeniable fact of presence and our obligation to fully inhabit it.
The Paradox of Thought and Being
- Being is immediate and undeniable but as soon as we analyze it, we reduce it to interpretation.
- Thinking about being is an act of separation, yet, as thinking beings, we cannot help but interpret.
- Rejecting interpretation is itself an interpretation, a paradox built into the human experience.
This is why many philosophical and spiritual traditions point to presence, a state of awareness without resistance, where one does not fight reality but simply inhabits it.
But can we ever truly escape interpretation? Even the pursuit of pure being is shaped by our thoughts, our perceptions, and our biology.
Perhaps the highest realization is not to escape this paradox but to embrace it. To recognize that the tension between thought and being is itself part of existence.
Is being enough? The search for meaning.
If existence is the only undeniable truth, does that mean being is enough? Or do we need something more?
- Science seeks patterns. It uncovers truths that exist whether we recognize them or not.
- Religion seeks meaning. It provides stories to make sense of the unknown. It offers interpretations of meaning.
- Philosophy seeks understanding. It navigates the tension between knowledge and mystery.
For a long time, I wanted an answer. Some ultimate truth that could resolve everything. Science explained the how of existence, but it did not tell me why it mattered. Religion offered stories, but I could not force myself to believe in something just to feel comforted. Philosophy gave me questions more than conclusions. I used to find this frustrating. Now, I see it differently: maybe the answer isn’t in the search at all, but in the acceptance of being itself, of presence, of reality as it is, without needing it to be anything more.
To embrace the God aspect is not to seek eternity but to accept mortality. It is to recognize that meaning is not found in some timeless, infinite beyond but in the fleeting, fragile reality of now. We long for permanence, yet we exist in impermanence. It is not about escaping impermanence but about stepping fully into it, knowing that our transience is what makes life matter. And yet, living fully in the present does not mean rejecting the future or dismissing the past. It means acknowledging them without being trapped by them. The present moment is not an escape: it is the meeting place of what was and what will be.
Science, religion, and philosophy do not compete; they are different ways of engaging with existence. The God aspect does not dismiss them; it simply suggests that they are interpretations. You chose how you interpret your reality, but the reality of being itself is a truth we all have in common.
To live truthfully is to accept this. To recognize one’s own experience of being, not as an abstraction, but as something real, lived, and undeniable. It is to take responsibility for it.
But does this mean that meaning itself is an illusion? I think so. But even if all meaning is constructed, it does not make it unimportant. Humans must interpret, must create, must seek. If being is the foundation, then how we live, how we engage with that being, is just as crucial.
Thus, the God Aspect is not just presence. It is also the responsibility of presence. To exist is not passive. It is an invitation to live truthfully, to engage with reality not as we wish it to be, but as it is.
Another paradox: The Paradox of Meaning
I have caught myself overthinking this exact paradox, trying to rationalize purpose and meaning while knowing that every attempt to define it seemed inherently pointless. It is frustrating, even absurd at times, but maybe that is the point. Maybe the goal is not to escape the paradox, but to learn how to live inside it.
Because if life has no inherent meaning when all is done and gone, then in that very freedom lies our ability to create our own. We may never leave a lasting mark, but we can still feel and experience love, art, challenge, and joy. It is not about winning or permanence but about embracing the fleeting beauty of existence. The chaos, uncertainty, and risk of life are what make it rich, and by engaging with them fully, we give our moments depth and significance.
Rather than retreating into avoidance, we can choose to live. We can risk, create, and feel deeply. While the absence of ultimate purpose can be daunting, it also liberates us to make life our own. Meaning is not found in permanence but in experience, and in choosing to embrace the unknown, we truly live. Perhaps, in the end, that is all that matters.
The paradox is that while life has no inherent meaning, this very lack of purpose grants us the freedom to create our own, making our fleeting experiences deeply significant to us even though in the grand scheme of things, or what we interpret as the universe and beyond, completely void.
Thus, if life is inherently void of meaning, then our greatest responsibility is not to seek an ultimate purpose but to fully engage with existence. It means embracing the fleeting, the uncertain, and the deeply personal moments that give our lives depth. In the absence of cosmic significance, it is in our hands to live truthfully, not as we wish reality to be, but as it unfolds before us.
It is our moral obligation to face our fleeting and insignificant existence with grace and purpose. We must choose to live fully rather than surrender to despair. Even if reality itself is uncertain, we are given the ability to perceive, to interpret, and to experience what we call being alive.
I’ve had days where I felt like an observer in my own life, detached and uninvolved, as if waiting for meaning to present itself. But meaning never arrived like some grand revelation. It only appeared when I decided to show up, to engage, to act. The more I leaned into reality, the more real it felt. Presence, I realized, is not just something to acknowledge. It is something to practice.
The duty if being
We construct meaning. We chase understanding. We search for truth. But existence does not depend on our beliefs. It simply is.
The God aspect is not about finding answers or placing faith in something external. It is the recognition and acceptance of this simple fact. To be is not just to exist but to embrace existence fully, to take responsibility for it, and to find peace within it.
There is no inherent meaning, but there is the acceptance of being, and in that, we find the closest thing to meaning. Even this, the God aspect itself, is likely just another interpretation of reality, no better or worse than any other. I do not claim it as an absolute truth, only as an understanding that makes sense to me for now.
But it is not mine alone to define. I would encourage anyone to find their own God aspect, to embrace their existence, to take pride in the things they do, and to discover their own truth in being. Because sometimes, simply being is enough.
It is not something to be found.
It is not something to be worshipped.
It is something that is.
To honor it is not to believe. It is to live.
💡 The God Aspect is the recognition that the experience of existence itself is the only undeniable truth, and with that awareness comes the responsibility to fully engage with life, for each person to define their own God Aspect and live with pride through it.
Writing reflections
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This is for everyone who doesn’t connect with “just be happy” or “just do what you like.” Some of us can’t simply be content. We need reasoning that resonates. I always think and dream big. Perhaps I do not always act on it, often paralyzed by perfectionism, and need to fill in the gap with The God Aspect. Being is enough, take responsibility and move forward step by step.
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It’s basically a long way of saying: You have a choice: live or die. But if you choose to live, do it with pride. Whatever you decide to do, or not do, own it.
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The idea of the “God Aspect” feels pointless in the very argument it tries to make, except that it attempts to sidestep nihilism and some existentialism by enforcing a default mindset: taking responsibility and embracing moral obligation simply because you exist. Because pure nihilism would mean rejecting all meaning, including any reason to live. That resonates with me. Life, at its core, is meaningless, but the one thing everyone shares is being.
I don’t have God or some grand purpose pushing me forward. But I do have this: existence itself. And in that, I can find something to take pride in, whether in the choices I make or the ones I deliberately don’t. That’s still something to hold on to, and from there, you can begin defining or living your God Aspect.
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As mentioned, The Now is a perception to each individual. The Now is very hard to define as it is subjective and relative to its observer. Time moves differently depending on many factors of the observer. In our local universe our experiences of The Now easily overlap as the scale of the experience is very low. Still, each person experiences their own now. If the scale would be larger, by let’s say, we look up at the stars at a grand distance, we could stand nearly in the same place and still experience a different sight if I was moving and you weren’t. Our perceptions and interpretations are unique to our own, so that’s why I am speaking in this article of a philosophical ‘now’, your own experience.
