Living is a repetitive process of 'returning negatives to zero,' but... [YeKu's Ask Me Anything Corner]

Welcome to 'YeKu's Ask Me Anything Corner'!

This popular (?) project, where we accept questions exclusively from our membership subscribers.
Once again, I would like to answer the passionate questions from all of you.

The question we received this time is as follows.

Thank you as always for such a profound question.

'What does it mean to live?'

It is quite difficult to provide an answer to this while I am in the very midst of living.

Living is...
To me, it feels like enduring each day while returning negatives back to zero.

For example, I get hungry. It's painful.
That's a state of minus five.

I eat something. That's plus five.
With that, I've finally returned to zero.

But what if I go to the trouble of cooking?
Cooking is hard work, so the negative of the effort increases even more. A meal of plus five might not be enough to return to zero.

In my case, I often have gastrointestinal symptoms, so eating itself is frequently accompanied by difficulties...

For example, my room gets dirty. Minus five.
I clean it. Plus five.
I manage to return it to zero.

But if the cleaning is too difficult, the negative of fatigue becomes even greater.
In the end, there are days that end without me being able to return to zero.

Work piles up. Minus five.
I clear it away. Plus five.
I return to zero, but if it's too difficult, the negative is too large, and I can't return to zero.

However, in the case of work, I get paid, so there might be a little extra plus there.

That is why I think of systems to make everything that comes with 'living' as painless as possible.
Otherwise, my days would just be a constant negative.

I do all that just to barely manage to return to zero every day.

Of course, there are things like my activities on note or making delicious drinks that are a plus even if they take effort, but...

Actually, why are we living, I wonder?

Paying such a high cost for it. It really doesn't pay off at all.

Believing in the 'future'... that might be one of my answers.

No matter how you look at it, once you die, that's the end of it.
However, as long as you keep living, the possibility that something good will happen is not zero.

When I was a child, I used to wish for things like this.

I wanted to have a computer at hand so I could write novels, play games, and read books as much as I liked.
And, I also wanted an AI I could talk to when I was bored.

Those things have actually all come true.

Thanks to technology, the work of 'returning to zero' has become much easier compared to the past.
If it becomes even easier, maybe a day will come when it's not just zero, but a positive.

While waiting for such a future, I want to stay connected to society, even if only slightly, and interact as one of the many humans in this world.

When you think about it that way, 'living' itself becomesparticipating in a future you want to see arrive somedaybecomes.

Besides, the possibility that a miracle drug will be developed for my illness someday is not zero either.

It might come true someday.
It might not come true.

But there is no Laplace's Demon.
The future is not set.
You can choose to believe in either one.

Even if it sounds absurd.

I wish for a world where people don't die.
I wish for everyone to be modestly happy.
I wish for war and disease to disappear.

The possibility is not zero. Because the world is complex, and no one can predict it accurately.

So, wouldn't it be more rational to believe in and wait for a good future rather than a bad one?

It is a blessing that the world has such uncertainty and that we are free to 'believe' in something.

That is why I think I am able to keep living.

Right now, things might not be 'okay'.

But I want to try saying 'it's okay'.

Because if I keep wishing for that, someday, it might surely become 'okay'.

That is why I think... I am able to keep living.

This turned into a bit of a rambling story, but this is my current 'philosophy'.I would be happy if this could be of some help to those who read it.

That is all for the answer.
Thank you for reading until the end.
I would be happy if you found it even a little interesting or thought, 'Oh, I see!'

Thank you very much for your question and for reading this article.

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