Push

It’s cold. September’s chill bites at my skin, a crisp reminder of change.

As I settle into my chair, cradling my coffee cup like a small flame in my palms, warmth seeps into my fingers. I pause.

It’s quiet.

That early morning kind of quiet where the world still clings to slumber, and the air feels like an unwritten page, ready for the first strokes of thought. I flip open Simone de Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity, a book that demands a dance, not just a read.

And there it is, a line that lands softly but hits hard:

“The notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity.”

I pause again, letting the words hang in the air, heavy with implication.

I know absurdity.

Absurdity is waking at 3 a.m., eyes fixed on the ceiling, grappling with the vast question of existence. It’s standing at a funeral, lost in the ache of grief, or looking out over a teeming city and feeling the weight of how small we really are. Absurdity is that breathless silence that follows a profound question, a silence where even the universe seems mute.

But ambiguity?

That’s another creature altogether.

Ambiguity is the in-between space—cloudy, alive with potential, where meaning is just elusive enough to tease you. Like the steam curling from my coffee, twisting and shifting. You think you’ve grasped it, only to watch it slip away, a ghost of understanding.

I keep reading, savoring the words like the last sips of coffee.

“To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning.”

A total shutdown, isn’t it? Absurdity tells you: don’t bother. It’s the universe’s indifferent shrug, whispering that nothing matters. A bleakness that paralyzes, like running through a dream where your legs won’t cooperate. And sometimes life feels like that, right? You follow the rules, play by the book, yet everything unravels, relationships fracture, and you’re left clutching the pieces, questioning the point of it all.

It’s tempting, then, to label it absurd and walk away.

But ambiguity offers something different. It doesn’t slam the door in your face. Instead, it whispers: maybe there’s meaning, but you’ll have to dig for it. There’s not nothing; there’s just no simple answer. It’s that feeling of walking a path without knowing where it leads, but you keep going because perhaps the journey itself is the point.

“To say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must be constantly won.”

Now that rings familiar.

Life becomes this endless negotiation, where each day demands you to redefine what matters. Think of relationships—love, friendship, family. They’re not one-and-done deals. You don’t just declare, “I love you,” and call it a day. No, every day you’re re-earning that love, showing up, tending to it, fighting for it.

Life’s meaning is like that, too.

You don’t discover it once and put it on a shelf. You have to keep crafting it, reshaping it, asking yourself—today, what’s worth living for?

Then de Beauvoir hits me with the heavy stuff:

“Absurdity challenges every ethics; but also the finished rationalization of the real would leave no room for ethics.”

At first glance, it twists my perspective. But it makes sense. If we call the world absurd, what place do ethics have?

Why strive for what’s right if nothing holds meaning?

Yet, on the flip side, if everything had a neat answer, if life were just a puzzle with every piece in its place, we wouldn’t need ethics either.

It would be a predetermined script—no choices, no risks.

Like following a recipe to the letter, with no room for improvisation, no soul in it. It’s because life is ambiguous, filled with uncertainty, that we need ethics. They aren’t rigid rules to be followed blindly. They’re more like a compass when you’re lost in the woods, guiding you, but never revealing what awaits you at the journey’s end. They help us navigate the fog of not knowing, the gray areas where right and wrong blend into choices that shape our existence.

“It is because man’s condition is ambiguous that he seeks, through failure and outrageousness, to save his existence.”

I pause here, letting it settle.

Savoring it.

Failure and outrageousness.

Two things we usually flee from, yet here, de Beauvoir invites us to embrace them.

In a world full of ambiguity, failure is inevitable—time and again. We’ll make choices that lead us astray, tread paths that loop back on themselves, create chaos. Yet, through these failures, through our outrageous attempts to matter in a world that offers no guarantees, we carve our way.

It’s like building a sandcastle while the tide rolls in—each time the waves knock it down, we rebuild. Because in that act of creation, we declare that our existence holds value, even if the end result washes away.

I set the book down, lean back, and take another sip of coffee.

It’s gone a bit cold now, but I don’t mind.

Life can be cold, too, yet there’s warmth in our efforts, in the courage it takes to keep choosing, to keep searching for meaning, even when it feels just out of reach.

Ambiguity isn’t a curse; it’s the ground I tread,

the path I carve as I move,

and with every misstep,

I forge a little meaning—enough to keep pushing forward.