What Is Your Why?
Whether we realize it or not, we live out the answer to this question every single day.
It's our through line. It's what keeps us going, even through the darkest of times.
A while ago, I watched 'Collateral Beauty'. The film opens with the main character asking the following...
“What is your why?
Why did you even get out of the bed this morning?
Why did you eat what you ate?
Why did you wear what you wore?
Why did you come here? Other than the fact that I would fire you and hire someone else if you didn’t show up for work, but not that, the BIG why.
We’re certainly not here to just sell shit.
We are here to connect.
Life is about people.
Advertising is about illuminating how our products and services will improve people’s lives.
Now - how do we do that?
Love.
Time.
Death.
These three abstractions connect every single human being on earth.
Everything we covet.
Everything we fear not having.
Everything we ultimately end up buying is because at the end of the day…
We long for love.
We wish we had more time.
And we fear death.
Love. Time. Death.”
In the aftermath of a year where I was so hunted and persecuted I came desperately close to ending my life just to escape, I thought I knew my Why.
Survive. Get out of Sweden. Start again.
It seemed clear.
With hindsight I see now it wasn't.
One can escape a terrifying situation. What one cannot prepare for is the shock of changing from high gear to low gear.
And then...
A new Why must be unearthed from the ashes of a dying past.
I realized my Why had been a temporary one, born out of crisis. Of need. But under that...the truth.
The ultimate Why.
And so: Love. Time. Death.
Let us begin at Death.
Three people kept me alive during my darkest times in Sweden. I reached out to them from a place of blinding despair, where the darkness beckoned and I yearned for it. For the silence. For the end.
Each had their own enormous burdens to bear, yet they set their troubles aside to aid me through the bleakest of times, when the call of oblivion was so strong I could hear nothing else. Wanted nothing else. They leapt across the void and caught me. None of them let me fall, not even when I fought them. Or, when I damned them.
Even then.
They never let me go.
Which means my Why was not Death. I do not fear Death.
Then...
Time?
No. I pace, uneasy and tormented through the days and nights of my life. Bleak. Empty. Determined to avoid accepting my Why. Time is the enemy. Time both drags on and speeds up. It hurts me. It mocks me as it spirals behind me, a near infinite thing, laden with hopes, fears, and dreams. Memories. Lies.
No. Time is not my Why. I do not wish for more time.
I hate Time. It hates me.
Love.
Ah and there it is, the irony. After days and nights of questioning it, of walking through the forests and fields in the wind, rain and sun, at last, I have come to face the truth.
And it hurts.
My Why is Love.
I get up for Love. I face the day for Love.
It gilds my soul and frames my dreams. It breathes life into my soul.
I write of Love. I dream of Love. I am full of Love. I would die for Love.
And this is the exquisite crux of my existence. Why I must drown my heart in the blood of Malbec.
I am lost without Love...
...and yet I am afraid to Love.
And for how long will this hold?
How long?
Will Love come again.
Destroy me again.
Or.
Heal me?