NOTHING MATTERS

He drew a smiley face on a napkin. “This is how I feel” he said.

She looked at it. “That’s happy” she said.

“Yes” he said.

“So why do you look sad?” she asked

“Because I’m rubbish at drawing”

I is mind and mind encompasses, or includes, or is, everything that there is, and therefore there exists – there can exist – no thing, no where, and no when, which it is not. Whatever is, it is. That is what being infinite is; living in the mind, means: Having no limits of any kind. No beginning and no end, no fixed centre and no circumference. No boundaries of any kind, neither in time nor in space, or in any other dimension; no specific form, either physical or conceptual, no name and no shape. I is God.

Before self-awareness, the world belongs entirely to the observer, everything simply is, unfolding effortlessly around a single, unbroken point of perception. To the unreflected mind, there are no boundaries, no others – only the seamless presence of being. The infant or young child experiences life as though they are the centre of existence, the quiet axis around which all things turn. In that state, there is no distinction between self and world; the universe feels like an extension of one’s own awareness.

Then comes the metaphorical mirror. – In that instant, something profound occurs. The infinite observer, who once felt everything, suddenly sees itself as a thing within the world. A face appears, a body, a name – and with that, a boundary. The infinite collapses into the finite. You are no longer everything; you are someone. It’s a quiet death of omnipresence.

This transformation mirrors a well-documented process in developmental psychology known as Theory of Mind – the ability to understand that other people have inner worlds distinct from one’s own. Before this awareness forms, children live in a state of cognitive solipsism. They assume that everyone shares their thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. When they hide a toy, they think others know where it is too. The world is still a mirror of their mind.

But as they grow, they begin to grasp that others think differently – that minds are private, and perspectives are many. Studies such as those reviewed by Wellman, Cross, and Watson (2001) show that around age four, children begin to pass “false-belief” tests, recognising that another person can believe something that isn’t true. It’s a subtle but immense shift, the child discovers that not everything that exists does so for them. The mirror appears, and the illusion of being infinite shatters.

Yet this same phenomenon quietly repeats itself later in life. We might not notice it, but adults live within their own kind of unreflected state – a gentler, more sophisticated version of that early illusion. In the day-to-day flow of living, we feel continuous and timeless. Inside our minds, we don’t age, the inner voice, the sense of “I”, feels unchanged across the decades. Years may pass, but internally we remain ageless, as though time applies only to the world, not to us.

Then, one morning, we catch our reflection and something inside us falters. The mirror, once again, delivers its truth. The person looking back isn’t the one we remember being – not the youthful self we still feel ourselves to be. Wrinkles, grey hair, softening features, physical proof that time has passed. The mind, eternal and self-contained, suddenly collides with the body’s reality. It’s another kind of awakening – the adult mirror moment – when the illusion of timelessness gives way to mortality.

Just as the child’s reflection teaches them, they are one among many, the adult’s reflection teaches that they have limits. The mirror grounds us in the body, in decay, in impermanence. It reminds us that while consciousness feels infinite, its vessel is not. The mind may perceive endlessly, dream limitlessly, imagine immortality, but the body counts every second.

It feels almost tragic, to be like gods trapped in mortal bodies.

I’ve spent much of my life struggling with depression. At my lowest point, in a moment of suicidal despair, it was something as simple and unexpected as a tree that saved me.

I remember seeing it there, swaying gently in the breeze. I realised, the tree, oblivious to my existence, was there before me, and it will be there long after I’ve gone, and it reminded me of my own insignificance. That might sound bleak, but to me it was freeing. When you strip away the social pressures, the politics, the expectations – what’s left is what the tree had: life.

And I realised, if I had nothing else, I still had life. It was like a computer game where you’re about to give up on a boss you can’t beat, then remember you still have another token to play. Why wouldn’t you use it? Life itself – not living it, not the routines or the struggles – but the fact that we exist at all, in the vastness of the universe, is mind-boggling.

If I’d already decided I was done, then what did I have to lose by carrying on anyway? My book of life still had pages left – why not see how the story unfolds?

How is the tree and mirror related? Well, I’m currently, metaphorically, holding two jigsaw pieces, spinning them around, trying to fit them together. They won’t, but I feel like they should.

There’s something to be said for the god-like importance we put on ourselves, the time wasted when time is viewed as infinite, and the isolation of being everything, that prevents you from seeing all the other everything you are missing. And all it takes for that ignorance to shatter is a mirror to remind you you’re not God, and a tree to remind you that you don’t even matter. You have nothing, you entered the stage with nothing, and you’ll leave the stage with nothing, and what I’m trying to say is, that’s a good thing. Who wants the loneliness and burden of being special?

You’re bound to a boundless binding of freedom. Life is just a short holiday, and you don’t even need to travel the world, there is one around you constantly, actually listen to the birds sing for attention, watch a spider quietly build a web for its next meal, and watch a small army of ants scouting below your feet for undiscovered treasures.

For years, my mantra had been “nothing matters”.

Now, my mantra is still “nothing matters” – but with my lips pursed, whistling to the bright side of life.

:: REFERENCES ::

• Theory of Mind – Child Development Encyclopedia