Aarav entered the world screaming, startled by its brightness. The hospital smelled of disinfectant and beginnings; outside, life hurried on, buses honked, sunlight spilt over concrete, and people scurried with unreadable urgency. But inside that room, time hesitated. His parents gazed at him, awash in wonder. That fragile new life had summoned a vast emotion that, even in an indifferent universe, meaning could bloom uninvited.

Existence is beautiful if you let it be.

He grew up in the warm order of a secure life. Mornings were filled with pressure cooker whistles and lace-filtered light, evenings of football practice. The world felt safe and fair, effort led to reward, goodness to success. Aarav was bright, the kind of child neighbours envied and relatives dreamt of having.

He still dreamed vaguely of becoming important, a goal unclear and without purpose. “Big” was fuel without a map, burning fiercely but lighting no path.

The move from school to college felt freeing at first, but college itself only quickened the race. The corridors buzzed with deadlines and laughter that sounded rehearsed. He performed well, but in quiet moments, questions returned like a fever—unwelcome but familiar: Why do this? The answer is to get a job, to be successful, and feel hollow. What did any of it even mean?

At night under the hostel’s neem tree, he shared his unease with friends. “You think too much, Aarav,” Kabir, his closest friend said. “Everyone feels lost,” another shrugged. But Rohan murmured, “Maybe thinking too much is just another way of trying to see clearly.”

Aarav often felt like a rat running not from hunger but habit. Fleeting glimpses of meaning faded quickly.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” — Nietzsche

One night, after watching a video about the Crusades, he remembered a scene from a film: a weary king asked, “What is Jerusalem worth?”

“Nothing.”

Pause.

“Everything.”

The paradox struck him—how something could be meaningless and sacred at once. Perhaps meaning itself was like that: weightless yet unbearable. Maybe his childhood dream of becoming “big” was his own Jerusalem, sacred only because he needed it to be.

Life went on. He studied, performed, laughed, and secured a good job. Outwardly, everything aligned. Yet some nights, catching his reflection in the hostel window, he felt a quiet distance from himself. Success had come, just as planned, but the old question lingered, softly, persistently: And now?

Years passed. Aarav and Kabir who once shared benches, lunches, and dreams had become men, both with the same degrees, the same start, yet their paths slowly began to drift apart. They had joined the same company, wearing the same neatly pressed shirts, filled with the same ambitions. But time, as it always does, began to play its quiet tricks.

Kabir climbed the ladder, promotion after promotion, until one day, his name gleamed on the office door: Chief Executive Officer. Aarav, too, worked late into the nights, his lamp burning just as long, but somehow, the world never tilted in his favor.

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus

They both married, built families, and raised children who would someday ask what “success” really means. Kabir’s laughter echoed through expensive halls, while Aarav’s echoed softly in rented rooms. Yet when the two old friends met, there was always a flicker in Aarav’s eyes, a faint sadness, almost invisible.

He never hated Kabir, not really. But somewhere between admiration and envy, something heavy grew. He wanted to be like him—not for joy, but for justification. Perhaps that’s the cruelest illusion of all: believing that only the world’s applause can make life meaningful.

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” — Albert Camus

Kabir, on the other hand, often looked tired, tired in a way that even sleep couldn’t heal. And Aarav never noticed that the higher Kabir went, the lonelier he became.

One quiet evening, Aarav looked at his reflection and wondered: When did life turn into a race I never signed up for?

Maybe both of them had been running in circles, one chasing success and the other chasing its shadow, his illusion of success.

Because in the end, whether you rise or stay still, time consumes us all the same. Titles fade, wealth rusts, faces age, and even memory forgets itself.

“Our great mistake is to try to exact from life more than it can give.” — George Santayana

Maybe life was never about winning or losing. Maybe it was about walking beside someone for a while, sharing the silence, and learning that existence itself is enough.

One morning, like any other, Aarav received news that would shatter everything, Kabir had been hit by a car, his wife sobbing on the other end of the line. Numbness spread from his feet to his head, a cold, paralyzing layer of disbelief. He staggered to the hospital as though the weight of the news had struck his legs, only to find Kabir lying half-dead on the bed, a pool of blood darkening the sheets and floor.

Aarav sat beside him, watching the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the empire builder reduced to fragile breaths and silence. Around him, machines hummed indifferently, their rhythm the only thing alive in the room.

In that sterile stillness, Aarav felt something collapse—not just Kabir’s life, but the scaffolding of purpose they’d both spent years climbing.

All envy, fondness, competition, and love vanished with him, leaving only memories some joyous, some painful. How does it feel to see someone you spent half your life with vanish in an instant? The question gnawed at him as he walked home, the city’s sirens fading into the heavy silence of grief.

“The literal meaning of life is whatever you’re doing that prevents you from killing yourself.” — Albert Camus

His steps carried him without direction, his mind pulled backward into the past.

He remembered the nights on the college rooftop, staring at the stars.

“Do you think success gives life meaning?” his friend had asked. He laughed. “Of course. Isn’t that what everyone wants?” His friend nodded, smug. “Exactly. Leave a mark, that’s all that matters.”

But now, that memory feels hollow. That “mark” had vanished, just like his friend. Success hadn’t saved him.

Another night, over half-empty glasses of beer:

“What happens if we never find our purpose?” his friend had whispered. He shrugged. “Then we’ve wasted our lives.” “Maybe,” his friend had muttered, “or maybe we’ve just lived.”

Those words now echoed louder than ever, as if meant for this moment. The memories dissolved, but their weight lingered. He realized he wasn’t just grieving a friend, he was inheriting their unanswered questions, reshaping them into something he could carry. Perhaps there was no ultimate purpose. Perhaps that was the point.

Maybe life holds no grand purpose, no grand “why” waiting to be discovered. Or perhaps, life’s meaning lies not in what we find for ourselves, but in what we leave behind; the quiet ripples of kindness, the contributions that outlive the presence, the echoes of who we were in others’ lives. Maybe the only truth is that life goes on, with or without answers. Some call it tragedy; others, freedom. Life may not be about uncovering a purpose written among the stars, but about inventing small ones that vanish with us like a laugh shared at dinner, a hand held in silence, a dream chased even if it fails.

He breathed in, breathed out, and carried on—not because he knew why, but because he didn’t need to anymore.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” — Albert Camus