Letter #18

Dear _____,

Sometimes as I sit down to write, I fear I may sound utterly pretentious with whatever ends up appearing on the page. I feel like that will be the case today, so please bear with me. I am likely wrong – and should stick to my own experience – but I’d like to believe we all have moments where life and things “click”. Where we feel as though everything or most things about this existence makes sense. Before I get more into it, I know I’m not the first one to write about the meaning of life and I know I won’t be the last. I just hope what I have to write here isn’t insufferable to you or hasn’t been repeated too many times. So please excuse me while I go on.

I think a lot about how it is we live and what it means to live. I think it remains one of the greatest conundrums of our time, as we keep thinking about it and trying our best to make sense of it all. Many people have wrote about this in their lifetimes, coming up with their own answers and justifications as to what it all means. Sometimes we’re told to how to live by parents or doctrines, by role models or by oppressors (in which we discover a very different meaning of living – in opposition). But remove all that – take away what you’ve been brought up to believe, what your surroundings have taught you about the world – and what are you left with? What is their to guide you as you make a place for yourself in this world, in your existence?

We’re left with ourselves. Take everything away and we have only ourselves to shape our understanding, our morals as we go through this life. Yes, we are impacted by where we’ve been in our lives and by those we surround ourselves with – sometimes for better and sometimes for worse. But at the end of the day, as we lay awake at night and stare into the ceiling unable to sleep, it’s just us that we’re left with. In those moments, we’re left to wonder what our lives mean and whether we can stand by our choices, who we are.

And I think that’s so important to remember. Because the person we happen to be changes daily. Each decision, each step gives way to a new person that must go along in this life and make the best of it from where the previous life left off. When we put the day behind us, the next version of ourselves faces tomorrow based on how that past version lived. And we start all over again, knowing it’ll be a new version of us that goes to bed that night and wakes up the following morning.

I don’t know if any of this makes sense. I suppose I’m telling you this because I’m not sure which version of me will write the next letter, how they will approach the next sheet of paper, what will come from their pencil on the page. If I know anything, however, it’ll be a person who will read what came before this and choose to live in a way that believes in the power of communication, of connection, of sharing this life with you so we all have something to hold on to. Perhaps that’s all that life is – the opportunity to meet others with the understanding that we’re figuring this out together and we aren’t alone.

Thank you for entertaining this nonsense. Until next time.

Originally written 21-09-2025

Accompanying music: End of August by Noah Kahan