I refuse to not exist
Until death, every defeat is only psychological
The lowest point of your life is an interesting place. It works almost like a singularity, where events overwhelm you until nothing behaves as it should. While the winds rage, you suffer, and rage emanates from you as if your reptilian brain is pulling energy from wherever necessary to keep you moving. However, once in the eye of the hurricane, there is a calm. The world embraces you with a loud silence, and your thoughts become non-existent as if you could no longer afford to have them. The only consolation in this state is that things can only get better from there.
In Robinson Crusoe, a book about a castaway stranded on an island, there is a passage where, after falling ill and reaching the lowest point in the story, the protagonist undergoes a profound spiritual transformation. He reflects on his past life, his sins, and his need for repentance. He then resolves to change his ways:
"I began to apply myself to such things as were necessary to my subsistence. I had a great deal of tobacco, which was a great relief to me; but I had no physic, no cordial, no spirituous liquor, or any other thing to support me under my distemper. I had nothing to do but to lie still and pray to God for help. But it was a great while before I could bring myself to it. At last, however, I resolved to set apart some time every morning and evening for the duty of prayer and to read the Scriptures; and to this I added a solemn resolution that I would, upon my recovery, set apart some time every day for the reading of the Scriptures and for the exercise of prayer, and that I would keep a journal of my life and of God’s dealings with me."
Throughout the centuries, prayer has served as an instrument of alignment for people across many religions. It does not require anyone listening on the other side. Prayer, for many, is a rare moment of honesty with oneself, and Crusoe’s prayer stems from a profound desire for survival. In the eye of the hurricane, something stirs within us—a quiet, persistent force that refuses to let us surrender. This ghost is an old friend. It is the same instinct that has propelled life forward since the dawn of existence.
Aeons ago, on a hot and electrical Earth none of us could dream of living on, a single-cell organism appeared. It is now referred to as LUCA, the "last universal common ancestor." There is much we still do not know about how life began, but in a way, it seems to have been defined by one essential trait: the refusal to cease existing. Every living creature, sharing LUCA as its common ancestor, inherits this foundational trait of life: the inherent determination to refuse death, at least before its time. From sea turtles crawling to the ocean to wounded impalas hopping across the savannah, all cling to the smallest chance of survival.
At our lowest, when nothing else remains and the noise is stripped away, we have a rare opportunity to come close to our ghost. "I refuse to not exist." This declaration, repeated so often throughout the history of life, is something we forget in the safety of modern society. Yet, it finds us at least once in our lifetimes, when we feel we must survive, when we feel we have no other options. This ghost does not always come to our aid. In the unfairness of the universe, sometimes defeat becomes final, leaving behind insurmountable pain for those who loved us. Yet, many others are saved by it.
I beg you to listen to it and pay attention to it. Grief, pain, and suffering are part of life, but they must not dictate it. Catharsis is precious; it reminds us that we are alive, and that is how it must be treated—as a reminder. The next time you find yourself strolling through green spaces and encounter another living creature, I hope you share a moment of acknowledgement. Separated by flesh and history, your paths having diverged so long ago, you still find you have this in common. Keep refusing non-existence, every day you open your eyes.
Illustration of Robinson Crusoe. N.C. Wyeth, 1920. Romanticism.