Life is a blank canvas — and that’s the point
After years of dissecting philosophy and psychology, I’ve surrendered to the truth: meaning isn’t discovered, it’s created. Passion, service, curiosity — these are the brushes we use to paint our purpose onto the void. Earth isn’t a stage for grand cosmic dramas; it’s a workshop. A place to learn, fail, and relearn what it means to be alive.
Lately, I’ve been dancing with fire — the kind that licks at the edges of existence. Passion, ecstasy, moments where the veil thins and the divine hums in the marrow of everything. I’ve tasted bliss so sharp it could cut glass: staring at a sunset until time dissolved, laughing with strangers who felt like ancestors, losing myself in music that rewired my pulse. These are the glimpses — the universe winking, saying, “You’re not just a bystander. You’re the dance itself.”
But the dance has its rhythms. Expansion. Contraction. For every peak, a valley. At 31, I’ve shed the 9-5 grind, trading it for self-directed projects and the luxury of unstructured time. Freedom, I’ve learned, is a double-edged sword. Without the scaffolding of routine, the question looms: What now? Solve problems? Maybe. But even problem-solving feels like building sandcastles before the tide. Finish one project, start another — the cycle mirrors Taoism’s endless flow of yin and yang, where creation and dissolution dance. Pain, as the sages say, is inevitable. But meaninglessness? That’s the real adversary.
Here’s the paradox I teach my students:
Leaving your soul-crushing job won’t save you if you haven’t met yourself. I thought autonomy would be my salvation, and yes — waking without an alarm, chasing ideas that electrify me — it’s intoxicating. But comfort, it turns out, is a sedative. Without friction, without the ache of growth, even freedom grows stale.
Yet lately, there’s this pulse beneath it all — a raw, untamed aliveness. When I lean into passion, when I let ecstasy flood my veins, the meaningless chatter quiets. I’ve stood on mountaintops, literally and metaphorically, where the air felt holy and my bones whispered, “This. This is why you’re here.” But the descent always comes. The inbox refills. Doubt creeps back. The divine feels like a dream you can’t quite resurrect.
So I return to the basics:
What sparks joy today?
Brownies. A warm bed.
Teachers who cracked my mind open.
Friends who laugh at the absurdity with me.
What do I crave?
To act, even when action feels futile.
To embrace the absurdity without numbing it.
To chase the ecstatic, knowing it’ll slip through my fingers.
The dread still comes in waves.
Ego deaths pile up like fallen leaves. Bursts of productivity collapse into existential hangovers. I drown in books, searching for answers I know don’t exist. Yet here’s what I cling to: Aimlessness is not failure. Maybe “what next?” isn’t a problem to solve, but a rhythm to surrender to — like breathing.
To my students, I say this:
Happiness isn’t a destination you reach by quitting your job or accumulating wins. It’s the quiet thrill of showing up, even when the universe shrugs. Simplify. Want less. Serve anyway. The pressure cooker of existence won’t cool, but you can learn to savor the heat.
And to myself, I whisper:
You’ve touched the divine. You’ve felt life expand like a supernova, contract into a single breath. You know the pattern now — the climb, the fall, the stillness between. Let the meaningless wash over you. Let the ecstasy burn. Build sandcastles. Let them crumble. Build them again.
Twenty more years of changes? Fifty? It doesn’t matter. The canvas is yours. Paint wildly. Erase. Start over. The gods are watching, and they’re bored with perfection.
