Greene started as the guy who could explain string theory without making your eyes glaze. But his most useful work is when he turns to the question science usually dodges: what's the point?
He doesn't flinch. The universe, as far as physics can tell, has no built-in purpose. It's running down. Nothing was planned. That sounds bleak.
His answer isn't to deny it — it's to say meaning isn't out there waiting to be found, it's something minds create. Love, art, understanding, connection — real things that happen in the universe, made by us, in the sliver of time we're awake.
That's a grown-up kind of hope. Nobody's going to hand you meaning. But you're not helpless — you're one of the things in the cosmos that can make it. If you're lost, that's the assignment, not the curse.