It rips the blindfold off your eyes.
But it won’t tell you what to do with the things you suddenly see.

That’s existentialism in a nutshell. Elegant, intellectual — and a little reluctant to take the next step.

In high school, I kept asking myself the same questions over and over: Who am I, why am I here, and does someone out there know better? I expected that once I learned enough, I’d stop feeling so lost.

As a child, I imagined adults knew everything. Parents. Teachers. People in suits. People in black turtlenecks.

But reality? A few conversations were enough to realize that no one knows anything. And all my illusions evaporated.
It was a bit like finding out about Santa.

For a while you believe there’s someone who can make things happen — and then your classmates tell you, “Hey, that’s not true.”
And boom — your first existential blow. The world is no longer what it used to be.

I tried to act cheerful.
Nobody wants to hang out with someone who drifts through the day wondering whether life has emergency exits.

Most things didn’t matter to me then — and some still don’t. But others did matter, I just didn’t have the words for them yet.

And then the existentialists came along.

I read them, resonated with them… felt like someone had finally described my internal chaos.
But they never went further than that.

They pointed to the emptiness — but didn’t draw a map out of it. And I didn’t want to sit in that emptiness, not even if someone lent me that iconic black turtleneck.

What actually helped me back then was silence. That inconspicuous “doing nothing” which today is sold as mindfulness courses.

I walked in nature. Wandered without purpose. Stared into the distance. Did things the world considers completely ineffective.
And strangely enough, I felt alive.

Meditation is trendy today. Many people try to reach calmness, relaxation, a quiet mind.
But the more you try, the further you drift.
Silence doesn’t want to be a goal. Silence is a space.

And in that space, you suddenly begin to exist.
No effort. No performance. No little indicator saying “meditation in progress.”

But silence isn’t exactly an easily accessible commodity.
The world pulses. Streets buzz. Coffee machines hiss. And I love the noise of the city just as much as the stillness of the forest. Two worlds I’ve learned to jump between.
To be honest… not always with grace. More like tripping over my own cables 🙂
But I keep trying to improve. (Partly because of those coffee machines. I refuse to let anyone take the café world away from me.)

Sometimes it’s enough to just turn off the radio or TV playing monotonously in the background, pretending something is happening.

Don’t be afraid of silence.
It’s where the truly important things emerge.
Because silence… is always honest.