Why Do We Need to Believe Our Lives Must Add Up to Some Grand Narrative?

The sun is somewhat higher in the sky. I open my eyes. Outside the truck’s window the grasslands float as though they have no end. There are no lands more beautiful than this anywhere on earth. I imagine this is what the world looks like in the first verdant days of its birth. The endless blue skies, rolling green hills, wholeness.

Where are we going, I ask Noyon. Already the shadowy outline of Yatuu Gol rising up out of the earth is falling into memory.

Ulaanbaatar, of course, says Noyon. It is obvious he is pleased to have an excuse to drive to the capital. I am glad my pitiful existence can be of use to someone.

When the only hope is a boat and there is no boat, I will be the boat. I close my eyes and settle in for the three hours it takes us to travel there. This is neither a beginning nor an end. If all life on earth is one chapter in the story of the universe, each cosmic night four billion years long, then am I allowed to write a page in the tale of existence, am I to be granted a single word? Does the story even matter or is the witnessing enough, the being aware of each moment of beauty and hardship along the path? And why do we need to believe our lives must add up to some grand narrative, and what happens when we stop believing this?

On my wrist, the Rinpoche’s watch sounds the hour.