There Is No Answer

Hello!

This week I’m sharing with you a beautiful story about a man lost at sea, published recently in The Atlantic, written by Alec Frydman. It made me think a lot about how we make meaning in the absence of direction. Check out Frydman’s story below; beyond this point are spoilers about his story:

My Shipwreck Story from The Atlantic

After many days drifting in a raft no bigger than a kiddie pool, low on food and water, Frydman describes this experience: “A peace I hadn’t known to look for found me. Where before I’d dreaded sunsets—the precursors to cold nights and strange dreams, and the mark of yet another day lost to the raft—now they were only sunsets, and sometimes I found them beautiful.“

This reminded me of the way Alan Watts’ describes finding meaning in his book The Wisdom of Insecurity, that we “find life meaningful only when we have seen that it is without purpose, and know the ‘mystery of the universe’ only when we are convinced that we know nothing about it at all.”

Frydman concludes his piece with a reflection that reinforces this understanding of meaning in a meaningless world: “I’m grateful that I survived, but I don’t know why I did, or what it means…When you’re lost at sea, certain you’re going to die in a life raft, you ask, Why me?and receive no answer. When you’re rescued and restored to life, you ask, Why me? and still there is no answer.”