The truth is that we want answers. We want clarity. We want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that things will work out.
And life does not provide that.
The universe has a much higher tolerance for ambiguity than we do.
So where does that leave us?
We still have to walk the trail. We still have to wake up and make the coffee and feed the children and shovel the coal and live our lives.
But we have to do it all without knowing where we’re going, or if it’s a good idea, or if it will work out.
We have to endure suffering and pain, pass through great trials, with only shimmery mirages like hope and faith and a “positive mindset” to cling to.
Or so it would seem.
This is fundamentally my question. How do we live a life that is good all the way down, not glittery, but honest and decent and honorable? How do we shape ourselves so that we can pass through the hard things with our souls intact?
Our society doesn’t have a problem with famine or marauding bandits or people being lost at sea. Obviously it has its problems, but those acute horrors aren’t so much our situation.
We have a problem with slow, chronic suffering. The advice we are given for how to live doesn’t lead us to happiness or what we truly ache for. The things we do every day to survive seem to slowly separate us from what we most need to feel whole.
I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t know how to live a perfect happy life.
Not many of us do.
But I want one.
This isn’t a space for answers. This is a space for learning to hold the questions while we walk.
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