ABSTRACT
Can we say there is something intrinsically fantastic (unlikely), admirable ( beautifully complex) and simultaneously tragic (entropically doomed from the outset) about the universe? And about ourselves, the only self-conscious part of the universe as far as we know, struggling to make sense of our own existence, busily constructing and hoping for explanations even as we sail individually and collectively into oblivion? Was the being or something that came out of nothing ever a good thing (a random assertion of will in Schopenhauerian terms), a good thing for a while that then deteriorated, a good thing that has its ups and downs but will endure or a good thing that must sooner or later end? Or perhaps neither good nor bad? Depressive realism looks not only to the distant future but into the deepest past, interpreting it as ultimately negatively toned.
