The universe began as a cold—silent, vast, and indifferent entity. It expanded and swirled with no regard for justice or mercy. The stars were born in fire and died in darkness. There was no sense of right or wrong, no voice that called for balance or fairness. If the universe was the stage, then nature was the script—unfeeling, neutral, devoid of moral judgment.

But something strange happened. In one corner of this vast, indifferent stage, life stirred. It emerged from the same elements that made the stars, the planets, and the cold emptiness between them. And from this life, consciousness arose—something that could observe, reflect, and most remarkably, feel. From this consciousness, humans were born.

Humans witnessed a world filled with beauty and also of terror. They saw the sunrise and marveled at its warmth, but they also watched as a tiger pounced upon a deer, as disease claimed their loved ones, and as famine swept across their lands. They wondered why. Why the suffering? Why the joy? Why the inexplicable injustice that seemed to lurk in the world?

For many, justice became a human creation—a fragile attempt to impose order where none naturally existed. Yet, if the universe was cold, how did we, mere fragments of it, come to yearn for something like justice? How did we learn to cry for the innocent and to rage against the unfairness of life?

Perhaps it is because humans carry a spark. In the stillness of the universe, we are the ones who ask questions, who see a child suffer and feel the weight of that pain as if it were our own. Yet, we too are nature, born from the very stardust that birthed tigers and trees. If the universe is cold, how did this warmth emerge from it?

The tiger does not know it is committing an act of survival when it takes the life of a deer. For the tiger, there is no moral wrong, just the instinct to live. The deer, too, does not contemplate the cruelty of being prey; it simply runs, driven by the same desire to survive. And yet, when humans witness this, they find themselves in a paradox. They wish for the deer to escape, but they do not wish for the tiger to starve. Why? What sense of fairness, what notion of justice compels us to wish for both to live, when nature allows only one?

The universe remains silent, offering no answers. It simply watches as we struggle with these questions. For many, religion fills the void, offering hope when the coldness feels too much to bear. In times of despair, when innocents raise their hands in prayer, calling for help that never comes, we ask again: is the universe deaf? Or is there something beyond the stars, beyond the indifferent patterns of nature, that hears us?

And still, hope remains. Even when no answer is given, when the coldness of nature seems unrelenting, there is a whisper in the human heart, a spark that refuses to die. Who placed this whisper inside us? Why does it persist when the world offers no promise of rescue? If the universe is truly cold, how do we hear the voice of hope, however faint?

Perhaps the answer is not in the universe itself but in us. We, the children of stardust, are also the creators of meaning. Maybe the deer does not hear hope because it does not need to. It simply is, part of the flow of nature. But humans, with their hearts full of contradictions and their minds brimming with questions, carry within them the responsibility—and the burden—of hope.

In the grand, indifferent expanse of the cosmos, we stand alone in our search for meaning. And maybe, just maybe, that is our gift and our curse. We are the ones who dream of justice in a universe that knows none. We are the ones who imagine right and wrong, even when nature itself does not distinguish between them.

And in that dreaming, in that constant search for something more, perhaps we find our purpose—not to impose justice on the universe, but to bring it into existence, even in the smallest of ways, through the warmth of our hearts and the whispers of hope that we refuse to let go.