“Do we matter?” is a question almost everyone encounters at some point, especially in their mid-twenties. It’s a strange age, one where the world feels open and possible, yet frighteningly uncertain. We begin to wonder what the sum of our lives will amount to. Will we leave a lasting legacy, or will we quietly pass through without notice?

I was thinking about this while watching the recently released film, Nuremberg. In the film, Rami Malek’s character, Douglas Kelley, struggles with this exact question. Kelley wants to be someone of significance, someone who leaves a legacy. He is determined not to end up like his father, who he believed lived an unremarkable life. Yet, in the years after the war, Kelley’s book fails, his work is forgotten, and the most notable period of his life becomes the time he spent studying the Nazi prisoners in Nuremberg. Eventually, Kelley took his own life at 45. The tragedy is not just in the act itself but in the quiet fear that drove him: the fear of being ordinary.

In our twenties, we see people branching off in different directions. Some build start-ups, others go corporate, some wander and experiment, and others choose stability and familiarity. The divergence is wide, yet the underlying thread is the same; everyone is, in some way, looking for meaning. We want reassurance that the choices we make today will add up to something tomorrow.

Some days it feels enough just to be here, to care about the people around us, to try. On other days, it feels like everything is slipping, like time is moving faster than we can build anything meaningful. I don’t think I have an answer yet. I don’t know if any of this will amount to something, if I will be remembered, or if the things I care about will matter to anyone else one day.

Maybe everyone is just figuring it out as they go. Maybe the point is in the trying, or maybe there is no point at all. I’m still thinking about it.