Peeling the Layers: A Journey Through My Own Struggle for Meaning
We don’t grow by finding answers. We grow by ‘living the questions’ (Rainer Maria Rilke) long enough for them to become us.
The Restless Mind
I’ve often imagined peeling myself like an onion, layer after layer, skin after skin, until I reach something real, something untouched by expectation or ambition. But each time I get close, I find another layer waiting.
I struggle with fulfillment.
It’s not so much a lack of it, but it keeps changing shape.
Some days I feel I haven’t done nearly enough, not enough work, not enough reading, not enough building. Why don’t I own more companies by now? Why haven’t I read all the books I’ve collected over the years?
The facts are ordinary, unlike the thought process.
The problem is the pressure. Quiet, self-inflicted, unrelenting pressure.
“Ambition becomes obsession when fulfillment turns into a moving target.”
At some point, you start comparing. You scroll through people who seem to have it all figured out. You wonder if Elon Musk ever feels like he’s not doing enough. You envy those who seem content doing less, resent those who fake their way through life, and then realize that none of this is actually healthy.
I’ve learned to tame the anger through meditation and long silences, but the shadows still find their way in. Some weeks are dark, without anything around me changing, but because something within me did.
To most people, I come across calm, controlled, unreadable. That poker face hides a thousand small battles. Maybe it’s a shield, maybe it’s a flaw. The habit of not saying much only reinforces the illusion.
When the Storm Comes Quietly
Recently, when the pressures of a growing enterprise caught up with me, delayed payments, payroll anxiety, the weight of responsibility, I found myself there again.
The familiar dark place.
I knew I had more than enough to be grateful for. But it didn’t matter. Because fulfillment is relative, and the mind never stops moving the goalpost.
So this time, I decided to stop running.
In the middle of the day, I lay down, closed my eyes, and told my body to relax. Silence. And in that stillness, a thought surfaced, maybe the first step isn’t to fix the problem, but to understand the driver.
Who am I really? What makes me tick?
Tracing the Threads
I went back, way back.
I grew up surrounded by business, books, music and quiet curiosity.
Drawing, reading, and building - that’s what filled my early days.
I remember graduating from toys to books, the way others move from cartoons to cinema. I’d pick up a Sidney Sheldon before an exam and finish it at dawn. Reading was oxygen, not escape.
Drawing gave me satisfaction. Writing gave me release. Pain turned into meaning. Restlessness turned into rhythm. I wanted to be a writer once, wrote books that are still unpublished…I still do, in disguise.
Then there was order, the need for structure, for cleanliness, for precision. I can’t breathe in chaos. Building order was my way of taming uncertainty.
And then came building. And destroying.
Sandcastles, toys, computers. I broke things apart just to see how they worked. Sometimes they never worked again. But discovery was the reward. I dissected insects. The thought of which makes me sad even today.
Learning was constant. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, endless whys. That never stopped.
“Curiosity is the first spark of creation. But if left unchecked, it becomes the fire that consumes the peace it once illuminated.”
Somewhere along the way, importance crept in. I wasn’t the top student, always close, never first. That gap became a hunger for recognition. Over time, accomplishment became synonymous with worth. Maybe that’s when the distortion began.
The Psychological Loop
Psychologists call it the hedonic treadmill, the mind’s tendency to return to a baseline of dissatisfaction no matter how much we achieve. The finish line moves faster than we can run.
Fulfillment is not about having more. It’s about noticing enough.
But when your wiring has been tuned since childhood to seek validation through doing, stillness feels like failure.
That realization brought both relief and grief.
Relief, because I understood the pattern. Grief, because I knew how deeply it was etched in me.
I’ve meditated for over fifteen years, to survive. Meditation doesn’t solve the storm. It only teaches you to observe it without drowning.
The Meaning of Meta-Creation
Somewhere along the way, I decided that building companies was my way of creating meaning.
Maybe it was the influence of my childhood, business conversations at home, the quiet respect attached to people who build. But over time, I realized: creation alone isn’t enough.
It’s the meaning behind creation that sustains.
That’s what I now call meta-creation, the act of understanding the patterns beneath what we build, and in doing so, understanding ourselves.
“Building without meaning burns you out.
Meaning without building leaves you hollow.”
-Sahil Lavingia
I no longer chase success for its own sake. I think so, at least! I chase synthesis, the intersection of creation and comprehension. The moment when what I make begins to make me back. I am actively trying to use this as a framework of what I explore in my entrepreneurial journey.
A Work in Progress
I don’t have answers. Maybe I never will.
But I’ve learned that one aspect of being human is about learning to dance with my restlessness.
I’m learning to see ambition not as a flaw, but as a companion.
To forgive myself for not doing enough.
To celebrate the days when I simply am.
“The struggle isn’t proof of failure. It’s proof of life.”
-Tobi Lutke
In peeling back the layers, I’m looking for truth and not perfection.
And maybe that’s the only meaning there ever was.
A Note to Fellow Strivers
If you’ve been there, that quiet void between achievement and peace, you’re not alone.
The mind is a fascinating and cruel architect. It builds towers of ambition and then forgets the view it was meant to enjoy.
So take a breath. Close your eyes. Let the layers fall where they may.
You don’t have to build the world today.
Sometimes, peeling one layer is enough.