Searching for Something That Doesn’t Have a Name

In a world full of noise and no answers, meaning is what we choose to make of it

Jon Soto

Jul 02, 2025

To the deep thinkers,

Welcome to the Deep Thinkers Newsletter: A collection of essays dedicated to going beyond the surface.

If you’re new here, check out the Deep Thinkers archive.

Lately, I've been missing the younger me, back when life was simpler and what I was chasing seemed so clear.

I remember a time when all I cared about was whether I'd see my crush at school. Or counting down the days until the weekend, when I'd spend the night at my childhood best friend’s house, playing video games, watching The Boondocks, and eating copious amounts of junk food, which included makeshift bologna and cheese sandwiches we’d microwave until they bubbled.

I remember being cut from my high school basketball team.

I remember training like hell that summer and making the team the next year.

I remember quitting the school band to focus on basketball, then suffering an injury that cost me all but four games that season and wrecked me mentally for years.

I remember losing my passion for playing basketball soon after.

I remember falling in love at 20, convinced I'd found the person I’d marry. I still remember the pain from that breakup.

I remember how hard it was to finally finish college, and the ecstasy I felt when I was offered my first post-college job.

All of these moments in my life served as North Stars. They guided me. Good or bad, they gave my life meaning.

But it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that kind of clarity or comfort.

For most of my life, I knew what I was searching for. Even when I took paths I wish I hadn’t, or made choices I wasn’t proud of, I still learned something—about the world, about myself. No matter how naive I was, there was a quiet certainty that made the moments of suffering easier to bear.

But lately, things have been less clear. The longing for what comes next has morphed from hopeful anticipation to silent desperation. The hunger for “more” feels nauseating. I can sense, deep in my bones, that something is waiting for me.

Waiting to be uncovered.

To be freed.

To finally be named.

That is my reality—searching for something that doesn’t have a name.

And in the silence of that search, when beacons of hope offer nothing but emptiness now, nihilism creeps in and threatens to undo me.

And still…I march forward.

Searching for Answers

In Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka wrote that he was "constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones."

This line by Kafka speaks directly to those of us who are always searching.

Those of us chasing a sense of meaning that neither language, logic, nor any framework we've inherited can seem to describe. Kafka’s words validate that inner sensation—the quiet knowing that something important is right in front of us, even if we can’t name it.

And it’s in this inability to name this thing that existential depression often takes root.

It nudges us toward questions like:

What is the meaning of life?
Why am I here?
Why do I feel alone when I’m with other people?

We ask and receive no answer, and so a valley of sorrow begins to form.

Eventually, I found myself standing in that valley, no longer asking the questions from afar, but living inside them.

This has led me into a strange kind of rut. Strange because, on the surface, it looks like I’m doing fine. I get enough sleep. I write every morning. I read, stay curious, remain active, go for walks, eat well. By all accounts, I’m functioning.

But something still feels off. Maybe it’s that I now feel the full weight of the world, and my place in it, in ways I never have before. I look out at the world and see what we all see, and none of it makes any sense to me. This has left me at the foot of nihilism, amid a quiet crisis of faith—one where I've had to accept that the beliefs forced onto me when I was a child stopped bringing me comfort a long time ago.

There was a time when religion made me feel a sense of certainty. But over time, that certainty has faded. Now, the tension between what I was raised to believe and the reality I actually see has demanded resolution.

My first reaction to this acceptance was anger. Rage, even. But I’ve come to understand that those who forced me along a religious path did so out of love. And so, instead of spite, I seek solace in stripping it all away and building a worldview of my own.

It’s felt strange, but it also feels honest. Because for me, the answers I’m seeking cannot be satisfied with just hope. Faith alone has not been enough to settle my spirit—one that stirs so violently inside me it feels like it might rattle my skeleton loose.

Some days, I miss the naïveté I once had, when the thing I was searching for was always clear. Now, I shout at the universe to show me the way, and I am met with a shrug. I’m searching without a clue of what I’m searching for. And no one else can help me find it either.

I look out into the world, but all I see is a never-ending performance. Performing hope. Performing solidarity. Performing care.

Nothing feels real anymore.

And the only kind of certainty that lives on is the certainty of uncertainty.

Power of Choice and Privilege

Existential questioning and philosophy are often labeled as pessimistic or grim. But I feel it’s the opposite. An existential crisis presents the opportunity for existential courage—that is, the courage to keep living with presence, even when the universe stays silent in response to our deepest questions. It’s the courage to create depth within even the most mundane parts of life.

The truth is, to sit and ponder the existential—to reflect so deeply that it can be labeled a “crisis”— is, in itself, a privilege. For me to be here, sitting in an air-conditioned apartment, wrestling with abstract demons, is a privilege. To have people read these words is a privilege.

To know that there are souls like mine, caught in the slow unraveling that begins when the deeper questions won’t let go, is a privilege.

But recognizing privilege isn’t the end; it's simply the start. Because once certainty slips through our fingers, what is left is the vulnerable space of the unknown. And in that space, we are granted the power to choose. To choose what we believe in. To choose to keep questioning. To choose what we study. To choose who we’ll become.

In essence, we can always choose what our lives mean.

And for the souls that are never satisfied, for those traveling without a clear North Star, it’s subjective meaning that provides salvation. It is the subjective meaning that keeps us from despair. It is the board we ride atop the endless waves of existential questioning.

And how can nihilism survive when we embrace the power of choice?

The Invincible Summer

The world doesn't make any sense. Everybody is just winging it, and nobody knows what we’re supposed to be doing here.

Friends of mine speak of karmic justice for all the atrocities we’ve witnessed and for those we haven’t, and I recoil a bit. Maybe it exists. But I think the best way to travel in this world, the one we have right here in front of us, is to face it as valiantly as we can.

Even through the suffering, even in the absence of certainty, we always have the freedom to choose our attitude and direction. There is no "right" answer until you choose one.

Your life has the meaning that you assign it, and you affirm that meaning through your actions. No amount of advice, no religion, no therapist can do the work for you. You must exercise your power to choose, because life doesn’t grant clarity before action.

Feedback follows forward motion.

So explore. Be curious. Use the space of the unknown to grow. If your life feels void of meaning, remember, you can give it meaning at any moment.

Viktor Frankl captured this responsibility with clarity and force:

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.
Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.
Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

When the world is crying and you want so badly to wipe away the tears for good, keep showing up. Keep choosing what matters, making choices you can be proud of. Not because they’ll give you all the answers, but because they are the answer.

I wish you all the best.