— Irrfan Khan, Life of Pi
At first glance, this quote sounded to me like a kind of grief, the letting go of people, memories, moments. But if we look deeper into it we might see a more universal truth to it: life is a continuous series of trade-offs.
To have one thing, you often have to give up another. Every choice we make is a trade-off. You want success? You give up sleep. You want freedom? You give up stability. You want presence? You give up constant ambition. We spend most of our lives oscillating between two poles: materialistic enjoyment and materialistic achievement. Ironically, pursuing one often comes at the cost of the other. Even if we do manage to acquire one, or both, we eventually hit a wall. A sort of existential fatigue. A quiet realization that this wasn’t it. This wasn’t the finish line we thought it would be.
This is where illusion begins to unravel.
As Albert Camus, in his work, The Myth of Sisyphus , speaks of this very absurdity. He puts his existentialist thought that to distract himself from the absurdity and complexity of existence, man fabricates purpose and goals. These purposes : success, wealth, legacy are illusions. Fabrications of the mind that help make life bearable. But when these illusions break, and the boulder slips, we confront a quiet truth: materialism and ambition alone do not fill the void.
So then, what is real? What lies beneath the illusion?
Maybe it’s not about what we gain or lose, but how aware we are of the letting go. Maybe it’s not about building a life of purpose, but about living purposefully even when no purpose is promised.
And maybe, just maybe, Irrfan’s words weren’t about loss at all.