Why Are We Even Here?

Art from the MOMA

Did you ever have one of those moments where everything just seems so weird and strange, and you can’t help but wonder why everything even exists and why we are even here? That’s the limbo I am in right now, and perhaps some of you are too. Where everything seems like it’s falling apart, and all the footholds seem to be crumbling beneath my feet. And yet, life goes on, and each day is a new day. What the fuck?

I am reminded that in my experience, if we don’t make changes ourselves, change is forced on us, often violently — in illnesses, deaths, and disruptions. It feels like, collectively, we are going through a period of forced change. And in fact, we can’t even fathom the magnitude of it, so we pretend that everything is normal. It’s like my experience in the magazine industry. I distinctly remember the moment, when I was a lowly circulation manager about 30 years ago when I finally understood the guts of how the magazine business worked and the epic, enormous levels of waste involved. Over 65% of magazines on a newsstand were simply thrown away. Approximately 96% of all direct mail was thrown away. And that was considered a decent result! “This is not sustainable,” I remember thinking. But in the meantime, there was money to be made, so the end justified the means. Until one day, there was no money to be made because our blind focus on paper meant those who spoke in digital stole the keys to our kingdom. It’s a cycle that’s as old as time itself. Because time is not a straight line but a spiral.

I also remember about 15 years ago I was in Germany on magazine business and was having dinner with our partner, who was a good enough friend that I could speak openly with him…

“I have to tell you, as a 25% Jewish person and a descendant of German protestants, it feels a bit strange and even dangerous to be here,” I whispered. As you all know, Jews were exterminated during the Nazi reign. And Lutherans were also beheaded and burned at the stake during the Protestant Revolution. But there we were, sitting in a very fancy restaurant, having a polite conversation — about magazines. He conveyed the collective guilt that Germans felt and the steps they had enacted to make sure it never happened again. At the time, I couldn’t fathom how it could ever happen — especially in America.

But here we are. Magazines are basically dead. Nazi flags fly from suburban homes. And the incoming regime is threatening to kill anyone who disagrees with them, even while claiming to stand for free speech. There is hardly any media that can be trusted to tell the truth. In fact, there is hardly any truth. So why are we even here?

From a spiritual perspective, I have always believed we are here to learn, grow, evolve, transform, and improve our universe. Is that really true? I have no idea. The best perspective I heard recently was from AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), who I think is one of the smartest (and honest) people in politics today. Sometimes, she said, things need to fall apart before they can be rebuilt into something better.

Sometimes things need to fall apart before they can be rebuilt into something better.

The truth is, it’s too late for incremental change. That’s why all this radical change is happening around us. But the world will not end. Remember, time is a spiral. Each turn around the universal orbit gives us another chance to learn, to grow, to evolve, whether we like it or not.

Why are we even here? I still don’t know for sure and may never know. But now I know that little voice that told me 30 years ago that magazines were unsustainable was right. And I need to believe that voice to guide me along wherever this spiral takes me. Even though I have no idea where we are currently going or why we are even here.

But here is what I do know: I will not keep quiet. I will not stop questioning. I will not obey in advance. I will write. I will make art. I will wake up every day and start over again.

I will trust the magic.