Living in the Liminal: Between Chaos and Control
One phone call. One moment. One breath—and everything changes. When someone we love dies suddenly, our world fractures. The air feels too still, time too cruel, and meaning evaporates like mist. We want to scream, "Why?"—but often, all we find is silence.
A client recently shared with me, after losing her daughter, that she's come to believe life is just a random series of events. She was on vacation when that call came. Her daughter was taken by an undiagnosed illness. "S**t happens," she said, with a resigned clarity. It’s one end of a philosophical spectrum: a worldview where nothing has meaning, and everything is just reaction and coincidence. Why search for meaning when there clearly is none?
On the opposite end is the belief that everything happens for a reason—that there is a plan so intricate that nothing escapes it. This worldview can offer comfort but also a kind of pressure: if everything is planned, then every tragedy must also be intentional.
But what if the truth lies somewhere in between?
The Space Between Destiny and Disorder
The 2011 film The Adjustment Bureau explores this liminal space. In the movie, unseen agents work behind the scenes to ensure people's lives follow a predetermined plan. But even within this controlled system, there's room for deviation, for human choice, for love to rewrite the rules. It doesn’t claim everything is planned, nor that nothing is—but that life dances in the tension between the two. This is the model that works best for me.
I believe that's closer to how it really works.
Meaning Doesn't Always Announce Itself
The loss may feel senseless. You may ask, “Why?” over and over again, only to be met with silence. But meaning doesn’t always arrive in the chaos—it blooms slowly, like a flower emerging through cracked pavement. Sometimes, it comes through the people you meet, the paths you walk, or the truths you uncover over time. You don’t have to force clarity. Let yourself live the question. Meaning will come—not as a lightning bolt, but as a quiet knowing. Meanwhile, try to be comfortable in that in-between state, where you seek meaning but haven't found it yet.
We are meaning-seeking machines. Humans assign meaning as part of who we are. I’m not asking you to deny your humanity by either saying there is no meaning or accepting you'll never know what it is. I’m asking you to accept that you may not understand the meaning now, but that doesn’t mean there is no meaning. Learn to live in the liminal space between saying everything is meaningless and having to have the answer now.
Action:Take a symbolic step into curiosity today—read something inspiring, go somewhere new, or ask a question without needing the answer.
Affirmation:“I don’t need to understand everything to keep going.”
Journal Prompt:What questions are alive in you right now? Instead of answering them, try writing them out as prayers or invitations.
Sometimes, the most honest thing we can do is not to choose a side—chaos or control—but to sit in the middle, breathe, and stay open to the quiet emergence of meaning in the wake of mystery.
