Dear friend,
It is the last day of the year. The season brings rest and leisure, but it brings something else too: a dark mood that, looked at closely, reveals itself as a crisis of meaning. Where do we find hope when everything feels dimmed? Where do we stand when our efforts do not produce what we wanted? How do we deal with this thing, like a demon, that pulls us into the ground and halts us?
Here is something I know for certain: what we do in the worst moments of our life determines the quality of what comes after. And here is the hard truth we have to face: there is no ground outside of us. We are not, as a species, enlightened about who we are, where we came from, where we are going, or what any of this means. We are, more or less, lost in the fog. If there is hope, if there is meaning, if there is love or joy or ambition to be found, it must come from within you.
Sometimes it arrives as a metaphor. A vision, a dream, an ambition, a love. The boldness of the lion, the high flight of the eagle, the resilience of the wolf. A past hero, a prophet, a name, a place. Whatever brings you meaning and power, use it. Search for what moves you.
What moves me is my commitment to my family, first my own, then my extended one, and outward from there, to my Western brothers and sisters where I live, my Eastern brothers and sisters where I am from, and really to all of humanity. I see a species with a condition, one increasingly leading to unworkability with one another and with the places we live and work. The same care I have for my own family is the care I have for that larger family. And this care gives me power. It gives me cause. It lifts me when I feel dark and defeated.
I am reminded, too, that no desire is entirely my own. We are forever kidnapped by society, prisoners of each other, because we mostly want what others want. As René Girard understood, desire is mimetic; we copy each other’s wanting. And yet, in the middle of all of it, I find ground for taking responsibility, for choosing what will satisfy me, for deciding what will mean something to me. For some it is family. For others, the simple experience of being on earth, joy and play. For others still, work as the most ennobled form of worship. For me it is all of these. I want my family, my work, and my play to live in the same space, and I have been fortunate enough to design such a game for myself. This is possible for every human being: to design a game that gives you joy, and then to surrender yourself to it. That, I believe, is the only hope we have, to fall in love with something.
But a stark reminder goes with it. None of this is entirely up to you. You are being propelled by powers beyond your imagining, cared for and tested, carried through trials and triumphs by forces you cannot see. And still, you are here. So the first mood to fill yourself with is gratitude, gratitude for the chance to be in the play at all. Begin there. Then ask: what is the next move that is possible? From this place of stuck darkness, what is the next conversation I might have, whom might I call?
This is my wish for you as the year turns. That in the worst moments of your life, you find the ground within, begin with gratitude even for the difficulties, forgive yourself and others for being stuck, and make your next move toward a different future.
With care,Saqib