How Our Struggles Give Us Meaning, Purpose, and Grace

Fighting the Sun

“What is it exactly that you do?”

I’ve been asked this question all my life. It’s a funny one. I’ve never known how to answer. I never wanted to answer it the way people wanted me to — “I’m an economist! I write books, speak, lecture, etcetera”. None of us are just our jobs, careers, titles, roles, are we?

So now I just say: “I’m fighting the sun.” People laugh. Sometimes they’re a little shocked. Often curious. But either way, we have come to a kind of truth about me — and about them. It’s in my blood. The sun boils it apart and kills me. That’s the essence of me, the me I can never escape, my blood and bones and laughter, too.

What is it that you really do? When you wake up and open your eyes, what is your real struggle? Can you put it precisely, simply, elegantly? I think when you can, then you really understand yourself, as you truly are — but you also begin to see things that are bigger, truer, more necessary still: life, meaning, purpose, time, and death. But we will come to that.

“I’m fighting the sun.” It sounds absurd, funny. I mean it. But what kind of fool would fight the sun? It’s not a war that can be won. The primal god, the first dawn. No man or woman can escape the light. And yet every day, that is what I do…