Hard Things
Hard things are hard.
It never ceases to surprise me how despite the years I have been at some activities, they never seems to get any easier.
A few examples, I have been working out and reading consistently [1] for a good number of years, yet they remain hard whenever I choose to do them. The only difference is that I am no longer as surprised as I was in the early years about how hard they are, yet they are still hard.
Why?
Hubble
The Hubble Telescope has helped us identify, conservatively, 100 billion solar systems in our Milky Way galaxy alone, and has also identified, conservatively, 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe (the universal space we can observe mostly with telescopes).
Meaning, if each solar system is said to have at least one earth(a planet that can inhabit and sustain complex biological life) and each galaxy has at least 100 billion solar systems, then we should expect that there are 100 billion times 100 billion = 10 thousand billion billion (10 raised to 22) planets out there with complex biological life and possibly also conservatively expect that at least maybe intelligent life may be found in 1% of them, that implies planets with intelligent complex biological life in the observable universe will be 100 billion billion.
Such huge numbers create a dilemma. If we have such humongous number of planets in the observable universe with intelligent complex life, where are those intelligent complex beings? Why have we not seen them? Why have they not visited us? Why have they not sent us any message? Or as Fermi famously asked “where are they?”[2]
So that for all intents and purposes, we can assume we are, in such unfathomable potentially infinite space, the only intelligent complex biological species existing, a rarity, an abnormality – a more than sufficient reason to hold human life as sacred.
What does that have to do with why hard things remain hard?
Death
Here is Richard Dawkins in the blind watchmaker:
“Staving off death is a thing you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die, the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. Not all animals work so hard to avoid coming into equilibrium with their surrounding temperature, but all animals do some comparable work… more generally, if living things didn’t work actively to prevent it, they would eventually merge into their surroundings, and cease to exist as autonomous being, that is what happens when we die”
Hard
The point is lifeless matter is the norm, life, complex biological life, more so intelligent complex biological life is an aberrational abnormality, the normality is death, the normality is undifferentiated matter infinitely repeating itself endlessly through space, death is such a norm in the universe that a significant amount of energy we burn is burnt to simply ensure there is a differential between us and our environment, the little gap we create through work is what keeps us from merging with our environment, is what keeps us from death.
This implies that relative to the amount of lifelessness that pervades the universe, complex biological life like ours will never have respite from having to stave off death, our bodies will have to constantly work, constantly differentiate itself from lifelessness all around it and the universe at large, the hard work of constantly staying alive will never get any easier, hence it will always be hard.
The same is true for why hard things are always hard – they are the exception. The normality is ignorance, the norm is ease, the normality is getting out of shape, the normality is living your life on a whim, following your emotions without exerting yourself in a chosen path, hence the moment you choose to go in a different direction, to go against the norm, you are fighting a never ceasing uphill battle, which only ceases when all ceases – death.
Irrespective of how long we live, how often we successfully create that differential from the norm, tomorrow is another day, the struggle never ends, till it all ends.
Beneficial
It is not a given that because an activity is hard it is beneficial, it is not a given that because an activity is difficult it will have a good ending, yet all things being equal, given the prevalence of mediocrity in our world, hard things are more likely going to be more beneficial than easy things.
What then?
Just as we stay alive because our bodies consistently do the hard work of keeping a differential between itself and its surroundings, even so must you if you will live a differentiated life. You will have to consistently do hard things to the point where they seem like your own norm even though they are not, generally, the norm, you will have to get used to doing hard things that will always remain hard.
Thank you for reading.