when i was a kid

i obsessed about the meaning of life

it felt like if i could answer this question then all of my anxiety would go away

because i was the kind of kid, years before i would start thinking about this, that had a favorite ratty yellow blanket. i would, to help myself go to sleep at night, rub the edges of it together. over the years it had holes throughout it, but i never wanted to let it go

this same kid grew up to worry a lot about the world.

so i obsessed about the meaning of life

our purpose

i went to a religious catholic high school, even though i was not, and there a teacher introduced me to questions about our cosmology. he said there are only three things you really need an answer to: who are we? where did we come from? and what are we doing here?

it's funny now as an adult i've largely given up on my childhood obsession of trying to answer this

and instead, much like the characters in the famous sci fi novel hitchiker's guide to the galaxy, have come to realize that it's a trick

the problem is not that there is no answer. the problem is that there are many

which put another way, means there isn't one

which put another way, makes you realize that it probably was never the right question to begin with

and so here i am typing at my kitchen table no longer worried about the meaning of it all

having been released years ago from every thinking it could be answered

and in that letting go a strange new truth emerges

the meaning of life is to question

it's not to find answers