Since my 42nd birthday in late June, I’ve been contemplating the meaning of life. I wrote this essay (LINK) about my thoughts along with an open call for submissions. Please enjoy this wonderful essay submitted by my friend Kirsten Nickel. Thank you for participating Kirsten!
Think of it like a dark, endless highway stretching out into the night. On one hand, you have destiny: the concrete road is already laid down, the final destination is fixed on the horizon, and you are hardwired into a specific vehicle you didn't choose. On the other hand, you have the raw, punk-rock energy of existentialism: the cold realization that the universe doesn’t give a shit what you do on that road. In the grand scheme of things, nothing matters, so fuck it. Put your foot to the floor. Because the universe remains entirely indifferent to how the stillness inside that vehicle is filled. There is no magic spell waiting to heal a broken spirit, and the cosmos will not intervene if someone chooses to pull over onto the shoulder, sit on the hood, and waste away for six months. The pain of a sudden ending, a shattered dream, or a heavy loss is raw and chaotic, and it does not dissipate with wishful thinking. The cosmos isn’t going to send a tow truck. Only deliberate, physical action—grabbing the wrench, moving the body, building something tangible out of the wreckage—can drag a person out of the dark and back into the driver's seat. This creates a strange, agonizing tug-of-war between the current grind and the ultimate destination. A driver can feel the distinct pull of far-off mountains, vibrant foreign streets, and a life of profound adventure waiting for them thousands of miles down the road. It feels like an inescapable fate. Why, then, must they endure the slow, mundane reality of the present? Why stay stuck in the local dirt, grinding through boring prep-work, grueling certifications, or the slow accumulation of pennies? Because entering the destination too early is a trap. If you arrive before you are ready, you wreck the car. Choosing stability and the exhausting manual labor of the present is a conscious act of preparation. It ensures that when the coordinates finally align and the destination is reached, the traveler arrives as a lethal, fully realized version of themselves—not as a desperate runaway escaping a messy life. But you cannot just sit neutral on the highway and expect the scenery to change. Magic on this road requires momentum. If you do not have your foot on the pedal, if you allow yourself to become stagnant, you will never encounter the beautiful, unplannable magic of serendipity. Serendipity is a ghost that only appears to people moving at high speeds.
You have to keep your foot pressed firmly to the accelerator, actively forcing yourself into the path of chance. You have to be moving for the universe to drop a miracle into your passenger seat. And the fuel that keeps that engine running is the relentless pursuit of learning. The moment a human stops absorbing the world around them, the moment they believe they have figured out the map and quit learning, they have quit living. To stop seeking new knowledge is to turn off the headlights while traveling at a hundred miles an hour. Learning is the act of keeping the windshield clean, maintaining the hunger to see what is around the next blind curve. The ultimate test of this high-speed philosophy is the heavy weight of grief. Tragic loss is rarely a random accident; some people are naturally chosen by the universe to be the guardians of a legacy. They possess the rare emotional depth and grit required to carry a heavy memory in the back seat through the blinding dust storms of life until the time is right to let it go. But healing will always require manual labor. The monuments where we lay our burdens down do not build themselves; we have to physically construct them out of raw timber by the side of the road. Grief never magically vanishes just because a ritual is performed or a calendar page turns. The architecture of a new life must be built by hand, mile by mile, inside the quiet spaces of a daily routine and the four walls of the driver's side cabin. The destination remains fixed on the horizon, but every single mile toward it must be paid for in sweat, choice, and a refusal to lift your foot off the gas.