In his book « La plus secrète Mémoire des Hommes, » Mohamed Mbougar Sarr posits that each person has an essential question, a central query that gives meaning to their actions and direction to their life. Some people are fortunate enough to discover this question early on, providing them with a sense of clarity and purpose. Others, however, embark on a more prolonged and complex journey, sometimes never identifying their essential question.

Before I encountered Sarr’s work, I had already inscribed a personal mantra on my left hand: « Tu as le droit à la question et à la réponse » (You have the right to the question and the answer). This tattoo signifies my awareness that there is indeed a question, and that the answer to our essential question is often found more in the pursuit itself and the reflections it inspires than in any final resolution.

Despite being aware of it, I have struggled to articulate my essential question. I can sense it deep within me, yet articulating it remains a struggle. The more I seek it, the more elusive it seems. What exactly am I searching for? I am not sure.

I am stuck in this ambiguous space that is affecting my sense of direction. It does not help that I am a mom and that I want to work in a field where I am supposed to support people in finding their own questions and direction. How can I do that if I am lost myself?

I have wonder at times if, for some people, this quest does works the other way around—that their actions is what eventually guide them toward uncovering their essential question. Indeed, some of my actions, some hazardous roads I took, have often create such an « aha » moment, a glimpse of vision so pure and intensely felt that knew they were bringing me closer to my question. Maybe instead of forcing a clarity through contemplation alone, I should rather focus the on the resonances some of my actions and how they are revealing the direction. To let clarity gradually emerge from movement and lived experiences. That for me, clarity won’t emerge from forcing the question, but by paying attention to the moments that bring me fulfillment as clues.

Uncertainty has been my most loyal companion on this journey of life. I am learned to trust that my question will eventually reveal itself, which means getting comfortable with the unknown. And when others will ask, « what are you doing, » or try to impose their sense of urgency and stability on me, I will practice and ground myself in answering, “it is not clear to me” or simply « I don’t know. » It can be indeed destabilizing both for me, and others, in a world that demands us to believe we have everything figured out and that stability is guaranteed.

”Be you, the world will adjust”

R-D