I am lost, too

Dear Ema,

This is a picture. A snapshot of my mind on this day, at 32 years old. I might change. I might read this one day and disagree with everything in it. That is fine. What matters is that you see the process, because people rarely show it. Most of what you will meet in the world is the finished version — someone who looks like they have arrived. Behind that there are usually years of contemplation, frustration, suffering, pain.

I do not have answers.

I read philosophy and I write to you and it might look like I understand something. The truth is I am lost. Writing is one way I keep going. One way I keep arguing with a silent universe.

---

Part of what I carry is old. My parents did not give me a ramp into the world. I had to build one from scratch. I did it. That is the project I am most proud of. But it cost me. I grew up with an emotional weight that does not leave. Anxiety. Depression. A pull toward nihilism. A feeling that nobody understands me. A feeling that no amount of searching will find meaning — that the only answer the world has for suffering is the one you invent yourself.

I am tired. I have been surviving a long time. As a child I waited for someone to come and save me. No one came. I had to become that person for myself. That work followed me here.

I do not want to be a father who seems unhappy. I do not want you to remember me as someone who looked at the world through a dark lens. I am trying. What I have found so far is that I feel best when I build things with my hands — when I get lost in the making of something. Maybe that is why I loved software for so long. Maybe that is why I am shifting now to more practical work. It is not a philosophy. It is a way to stay alive inside the day.

---

I am writing this because I may influence you — through my presence, or through genetics. Though I hope you take after your mother. She is positive by nature.

In a strange way, she has been the engine of my existence these past years. When I ran out of fuel, I turned to her and she pushed me further. I believe she does the same for you. I see the energy you carry, and I think it comes from her. That is a good thing.

But if you ever feel the way I feel, know you are not alone. I am with you. Even if this universe is an accident, and we are tiny dots at the mercy of moving rocks, it matters when someone understands you. That is what I miss most.

---

I want to tell you something about how emotions work, because it took me a long time to see it.

What you call your philosophy is often your feelings in disguise. If your parents reject you, you drift toward something extreme. If you grew up the way I did, you are tempted to reduce the world to meaninglessness — because if nothing matters, nothing can hurt you. It is a shield. A clever one. It sounds mature. It sounds intelligent. Underneath, it is the mind dressing up a wound.

Here is a small example. As I write this, I am looking for work. Interviews wake something up in me. When I sit across from someone who is about to judge me, the child inside me is sitting across from his father again, being told he is not enough. That triggers anxiety. Anxiety pulls me toward nihilism. If I can convince myself nothing matters, the critique cannot reach the child.

One small situation, and a whole inner architecture moves.

Meanwhile, other people are living. They are not building elaborate defenses. They are working, eating dinner, putting their children to bed. Instead of enjoying you, your mother, this young and healthy life we have together, I sometimes spend my evenings arguing with my therapist, or with Camus. I see it clearly, but it is hard to change. Partly because I am not yet convinced this is what I should do.

---

What I am slowly learning is this. Even if life has no point — and we may never know — suffering is not the only response. Not pleasure either. Something quieter. Doing work I care about. Keeping the moral code I was given, even when I suspect it is human invention — it holds things together. Letting time pass without trying to control it. Most people already live this way. I am still learning how.

We barely understand what happens inside our own skin. The body works without us — heart, breath, digestion, all of it running on its own. Beneath that, an unconscious mind makes most of our choices before we notice them. If we cannot see ourselves clearly, we should be careful before claiming to understand the purpose of life.

So: read philosophies. Listen to people who see the world differently. Know the arguments. But watch your emotions carefully — especially the ones that stay hidden. They shape what you believe more than you think.

---

If you ever feel lost, know that I felt lost too. At 32, writing this to you, I was lost.

I kept going anyway.

—Dad