The Philosophy of Mr. Nobody: What It Means to Truly Choose

“Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning.”

Imagine a future where nobody dies—immortality is finally real. Everyone’s forever young, living without the fear of death. In this strange world, all immortals have their attention towards one guy: Nemo Nobody, the last mortal on Earth, creeping towards his final days. They are fascinated by his life, a wild mess of tangled stories that don’t quite add up. Who is Nemo? What does his life tell us about the dilemma of making hard choices that we face in our lives?

Nemo tells us that before we’re born, we’re omniscient, knowing every possible outcome of every single choice that we will make in our lives. We are given the choice to choose our parents, and just before we are placed in our mother's womb, the Angels of Oblivion make sure we forget all the knowledge and the knowledge of every single timeline, so we are born absolutely clueless.

But in Nemo's case, something interesting happens. The angel forgets to put her finger on Nemo's lips, and he slips through, carrying the weight and knowledge of every possible timeline and outcome of his choices.

Nemo faces the dilemma of choice early on in his childhood when his parents split. He has to choose between his mother and father. Yet, despite knowing every path, every joy, every heartbreak, it doesn’t make choosing easier for him. Knowing everything paralyses him. Just like in chess, it's called Zugzwang: when the only move is not to move at all.

With the knowledge of every possible timeline of his many lives, he questions the very nature of existence. He tells us that before the Big Bang, there was no “before”—time itself didn’t exist. When the universe 'exploded' into being, it gave us dimensions —width, height, depth—and time. Unlike the other three dimensions, time is peculiar, a one-way street. As Nemo puts it, “The smoke comes out of daddy’s cigarette, but it never goes back in.” This is the arrow of time, tied to entropy, the universe’s slow drift from order to chaos.

Faced with so many choices, Nemo tries to cheat the system by not choosing at all, believing that “as long as you don’t choose, everything remains possible.” But in a universe bound by time, not choosing is a choice. His refusal to act creates a paradox, a timeline where he becomes “Mr. Nobody,” a man who doesn’t exist. It’s a reminder that we can’t escape the need to decide. We must actively and consciously choose to exist.

But why do choices feel so heavy at times? What paralyses us when we are faced with them? Is it the unidirectional nature of time? After all, we can’t go back in time. So essentially, once we choose, all other paths vanish - Or do they?

Every choice creates a ripple, a new reality where a version of us lives on. But how do we know which path is the right one? The butterfly effect tells us that a single flap of a butterfly’s wings can set off a chain of events that changes the world. In Nemo’s life, this plays out in absurd, heart-breaking ways. He loses the love of his life because two months earlier, an unemployed Brazilian boiled an egg. Random, right? That’s the point. Small actions can lead to massive consequences, often beyond our control. We call it luck or fate, but it’s just the universe doing its unpredictable dance.

In an experiment, scientists give a pigeon a treat every 20 seconds. If it’s flapping its wings when the treat arrives, it keeps flapping, convinced it’s earning the reward. This “pigeon superstition” mirrors how we humans assign meaning to our actions, believing we control outcomes when, often, we’re just guessing. It’s why we ask, “What did I do to deserve this?” when life throws us a curveball. The truth is, we’re not always in the driver’s seat.

Philosopher Ruth Chang offers a way to navigate this mess. She says we often approach big decisions—where to live, who to love, what career to pursue—by weighing options as better, worse, or equal. But hard choices don’t work that way. They’re “on a par,” equal in value but different in kind. Knowing every outcome, like Nemo, doesn’t help. Is the love for his mother worth more than the love for his father? Is Anna’s heartbreak worse than Elise’s depression? The universe doesn’t provide a clear answer.

Chang’s insight is liberating: meaning doesn’t come from external signs or cosmic guideposts. It comes from within. When faced with a hard choice, we have the power to create our own reasons, to put our heart behind one path and say, “This is who I am.” In one timeline, Nemo vows to marry the first girl who dances with him, an impulsive act to spite another. Later, he flips a coin to make decisions, surrendering to chance. Both paths leave him unfulfilled because they’re driven by external forces, not his own agency.

Just like Nemo, from our first childhood to our final conscious thought, we spend our lives in an unending stream of decisions and choices. We navigate this constant stream, often burdened by a nagging question: "Am I making the right choice?" But what if that question itself is the trap? What if there is no right decision?

We spend days, months and years ruminating and thinking about the "perfect" decision. A student agonises over the "perfect" major, believing one specific choice holds the golden ticket to success. A business owner, chasing flawless market insight, might analyse data for so long that the market itself transforms, leaving their "perfect" product launch dead on arrival. This quest for the flawless can paradoxically lead to total inaction, like Nemo who didn't choose at all and became Mr Nobody.

The reality is, we rarely operate with a complete deck of cards. Uncertainty is the landscape of real-world choices. Hard choices aren’t about finding the “right” path—every path could be the right one. It’s about deciding who you want to be and owning that choice. Nemo’s lives show us that even with infinite knowledge, the search for meaning is an inside job. We can’t wait for the universe to hand us a script. We write our own.

This isn’t to say it’s easy. We’ll stumble, regret, and wonder about the roads not taken. But when we choose from the heart, we open the door to moments of profound joy, love, connection, and purpose. Nemo says it best: “I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid I haven’t been alive enough.” Life, he reminds us, is a playground—or nothing.

It’s not about choosing the easiest path or the one with the best outcome. It’s about choosing the one that aligns with who you want to be. That’s what makes it meaningful.

Every path is valid. Every life could be meaningful.

So maybe the real work of life isn’t to hunt for perfect answers. It’s to become the person who can give meaning to the path they walk, whatever it is. That won’t make things easy. There will still be regrets, and moments when we wish we could start over—to speak up, to be brave, to live more honestly. But when we act from the heart, when we ground our choices in who we are, we can also find moments of genuine connection, love, joy, and purpose.

Even in a universe that’s vast and chaotic, our small lives can still mean something extraordinary.