Not all people struggle with meaning. Most of the most successful persons I met in real life or saw in interviews were not concerned at all with difficult deep questions such as the finitude of life or the purpose of their existence; most of them were “in the flow”, passionate or enthusiastic about their work or life – or they seemed to be so. Then, most of the “ordinary folk” are also remarkably uninterested about philosophical questions. This places me – someone who struggles with meaning – in a minority. And it remains to be seen if it’s a minority that exists in the present or I rather belong to the past, being more or less a “dinosaur” among modern people.

During my many years of pondering on a purpose, and coming from a family plagued by the void and the nothingness – something which made my task particularly haunting – I went through a process of distilling and refining what I find meaningful for me, personally, and what is just a temporary hobby or a pastime. What stood with me throughout my life, from the very beginning, was writing. Music comes and goes, photography comes and goes. But writing stayed and stays, no matter what, through the good and also through the dark times. Even when I feel that my life stops, even when I feel that I am not living at all – at least in the fully existentialist style I fancy – I do enjoy writing about life and what I see around me. Or, I write about other people’s lives if my own is dull or eventless, which happens a lot. To put it metaphorically, my life’s pendulum oscillates between living life and writing about life. Or between experiencing life and intellectualizing about it.

I am not a good writer. I know. And I don’t care.

While being at work but also during my leisure time, I encounter other people. I find this fascinating. I am not a people-lover, but I’m still curious to discover other ways of seeing life and reality – through other people’s eyes. Encountering others is like meeting aliens or extraterrestrials, or like finding precious stones in the garbage of our mundane existence. Most of the persons I encounter leave an impression on me – they do cause a certain emotion to appear in my soul. Beyond a learning experience, or a fight, or a struggle, or a traumatic experience, encountering others means enriching myself with yet another life-memory and life-emotion. And to put it differently, it may be that the only things I might take with me in the afterlife – if there is any – are the memories of this life and the emotions I felt. I don’t know if it’s true but I like to believe it’s true.

So yes, meeting others is meaningful for me.

Encountering others is an art. It is a double-edged sword. You encounter others and you encounter also parts of yourself that are awaken by the fact of meeting the other. You encounter the other with your personal history, memories, emotions, values and judgements about what is appropriate and what is not. The other comes with his/her own values and emotions and opinions about life. There is a clash. It must be so. You might see that he/she is incredibly different or remarkably similar. And in order to make the encounter profitable, you need to sometimes keep your emotions at bay… or your judgements for yourself… or you simply need to hold your ground. It’s a clash that can change you or the other or both. Or it can be an incredibly boring encounter one desperately needs to end as soon as possible. It cannot be interesting, or exciting, all the time. But with the right attention – or awareness – something can be learned, or experienced, from each interaction.

In the future articles I intend to share some of my meaningful encounters, something I also did in the past and I still feel the need to keep doing. I believe that the world can become a better place if people can tell their stories: this enables mutual understanding and reduces the possibility of total annihilation of our civilization – something that is never far enough. Telling the story of an encounter is also something intimate, exposing one’s flaws. But acknowledging one’s vulnerabilities, allowing them to exist as part of oneself, can also constitute a strength.