THE ULTIMATE TRUTH

No Advantage: Why Being Born Does Not Make You Better Off

Before you were born, you did not exist. After you die, you will not exist. In both states, the infinite time before and the infinite time after, there is no you, no memory, no awareness.

If existence is bookended entirely by non-existence, what is gained by passing briefly through life? The complicated answer is nothing. It is not better to have been born at all, because you never truly “know” you were.

No Conscious Continuity

We like to imagine life as a prize, but our experience of it is fleeting. We come from nothingness, and we return to nothingness. The self does not pre-exist birth, and it does not persist after death. Whatever “you” are disappears utterly.

Without continuity, there is no advantage, only a transient episode of awareness that vanishes as if it never occurred.

Illusions of Gain

People speak of life’s “gift”: joy, beauty, love, achievement. But none of these survives the disappearance of the self. They are not kept, remembered, or banked anywhere. When the lights go out, they are gone, and so are you.

From the vantage point of non-existence, which is no vantage point at all, it makes no difference whether you once existed. There is no “you” to enjoy the memory of it.

A Moment That Leaves No Trace

If existence leaves no trace in the consciousness that lived it, then it confers no permanent benefit. It is not “better” to have been born any more than it is “better” to have been a gust of wind. Both arise, both pass, both leave nothing of themselves behind.

What This Means

This does not mean life is meaningless while it is lived. It means only that, in the ultimate sense, birth gives no lasting advantage. There is no cosmic ledger in which having existed earns you credit. Before and after, you do not exist. You never know you were.

The only thing life offers is itself, in the moment. Beyond that, it offers no advantage over never having been at all.

William James Spriggs