You can live for years with events that don’t speak to one another, but then something happens, and suddenly your story has structure.

Coherence is what the human mind longs for most. When life lacks meaning, it’s often because experiences feel unstrung. Experience, by itself, is inert. It is structureless data. The act of tracing a line through the events of our lives is what makes life feel like a life, as opposed to a series of disjointed impressions.

We ask too much of our lives, sometimes. We wait for a sense of meaning to stride onstage in a cape, announcing itself in love everlasting or revolutionary purpose. We want to escape the senseless things that happen to us, or find a way to resolve sense into them. We want our actions and experiences to feel victorious, purposeful in their own... See more