When a person first begins to search for themselves

I often think about how sooner or later in every person’s life there comes a moment when all external events cease to be self-evident.

We continue to live, work, achieve, fulfill our roles — but something inside begins to change. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, as if deep beneath the surface of the water, a new current is born.

This current brings with it questions.

Questions that cannot be dispelled by work, success, habits, new relationships, or old beliefs. They remain. They return. They become louder—even though they sound quieter on the outside.

Why all this?

Why me?

And why do I feel more and more acutely that I once knew the answer—

but forgot?

It seems that such questions only come with age, when life begins to build not only freedoms but also limitations around us.

And indeed, maturity gives birth to a special silence.

But this silence is not the end of the road.

It is the beginning.

The silence that comes with age

With age comes not only experience.

Silence comes.

It does not come suddenly — it seeps in.

First, in the morning pauses between actions.

Then in conversations, when you realize for the first time that words no longer describe what is important.

Then in moments of joy, when you suddenly catch yourself thinking that what once seemed important no longer evokes the same excitement.

And in moments of fear, when what used to be frightening now seems almost insignificant.

It’s a strange state.

It’s as if life is taking away your old reference points, but is in no hurry to offer new ones.

It becomes quieter inside — and in this silence, questions begin to sound that cannot be silenced.

Not because they are loud.

Because they are real.

But the search for meaning begins much earlier

There is a common belief that the search for meaning is a privilege of adulthood.

That first you need to live enough years, make enough mistakes, lose enough illusions — and only then does a person begin to think about the essence of what is happening.

But, to be honest, the search for meaning begins much earlier.

Much earlier.

It begins the moment a small child first notices the expression on an adult’s face.

When they first understand:

“This is how I am accepted”

and

“This is how I am not accepted.”

It can be a look, a gesture, a word.

Sometimes it can even be silence.

At that moment, the child not only begins to understand the world, but also develops a survival strategy:

you have to conform in order to be loved.

This is the first starting point.

This is where the journey begins that we then call “me” for the rest of our lives.

The birth of the attempt to fit in

We rarely realize it, but we grow up not as ourselves, but as reflections.

We learn to be “good” so that we are not rejected.

We learn to be ‘convenient’ so that we are not lost.

We learn to be “successful” so that we are admired.

We learn to be “strong” so that the world does not see our vulnerability.

And gradually, layer by layer, we build not our essence, but a mask that is supposed to retain love, attention, and acceptance.

We look at our parents and imitate them.

We look at heroes and try to conform.

We look at those who are praised and learn to repeat their movements, their phrases, their views.

We absorb what society considers to be right.

And very imperceptibly, the main thing happens:

we forget what our inner form was like before all these improvements, corrections, and adaptations.

We forget ourselves.

The loss of uniqueness

Every person is born unique.

This is not a metaphor — it is a biological, psychological, and spiritual fact.

A child is pure perception, pure response, pure ability to be.

But very quickly, this uniqueness begins to be overgrown with rules.

“Don’t do that.”

“Look how others do it.”

“Be like everyone else.”

“You have to be like this to be respected.”

“This is what good children do.”

“This is how successful people behave.”

And in an attempt to be loved, accepted, needed — we lose something that cannot be regained through achievements.

We lose the right to be ourselves.

And with it, we lose the ability to hear our inner truth.

And then, as adults, we spend years going around in circles with the same feeling:

“Something is missing, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

It’s not emptiness.

It’s memory.

Memory of who we were before we became someone.

The moment when external reference points cease to work

And then comes the moment — not always noticeable, sometimes painful, sometimes liberating —

when external reference points cease to work.

What used to inspire no longer moves us.

What seemed important becomes secondary.

What instilled fear no longer holds us back.

It’s as if you suddenly find yourself at a crossroads where the old path no longer leads forward and the new one has not yet been marked.

This state is uncomfortable.

It is honest.

This is the moment when a person returns to themselves for the first time.

This is the beginning of the search for meaning — real meaning, not imposed meaning.

“Who am I without all these roles?”

When the external noise subsides,

when the masks cease to be convincing,

when the desire to conform loses its power —

a quiet, almost suppressed question arises inside:

“Who am I without all these roles?”

This question is not philosophical.

It is not intellectual.

It is not theoretical.

It is existential.

It is born not from thought, but from an inner crack that cannot be ignored.

At this moment, a person encounters not the world, but themselves for the first time.

And this is an encounter that no one forgets.

The answer does not come in words

We were taught to look for answers in logic, books, systems, teachings, explanations.

But the answer to this question does not come in words.

It comes in a feeling.

A subtle shift.

A warm knowledge that cannot be put into sentences.

It is a feeling as if something ancient inside you — something that was forgotten but did not disappear — suddenly recognizes itself.

As if you had been standing with your back to the truth your whole life,

and suddenly decided to turn around.

And at that moment, the most important thing happens:

we understand that meaning is not something to be found.

It is something to be remembered.

We are not searching for ourselves — we are returning to ourselves.

In reality, people do not build themselves.

They remove everything superfluous.

We clear the space that was once filled with other people’s expectations.

We shed roles that have long since ceased to suit us.

We stop conforming — and we begin to breathe.

This process can be painful.

But it is always true.

Because the only thing we all strive for — even if we don’t admit it — is to return to ourselves so deeply that we remember:

who we were before we became who we were supposed to be.

The meaning of life is not an answer, but a return

Meaning is not a summit to be reached.

It is not a formula to be solved.

And it is not a goal to be set.

Meaning is a return to someone who sees through the eyes of a child,

feels with the heart of an adult,

and understands with the soul of an ancient person who knows that life is not a task, but a touch.

Meaning is not a word.

It is a state.

A state of pure perception of life.

If you feel this attraction within yourself

If, as you read these lines, you feel a strange, gentle, but insistent attraction

then the very voice that began to speak in your childhood is awakening within you.

A voice that does not demand,

does not accuse,

does not rush.

It simply calls you home.

Not to where you were told to be.

But to where you were yourself for the first time.

This is not a path forward — it is a path backward

Backward not into the past,

but to the source.

To that space inside you where meaning does not need to be formulated —

it only needs to be heard.

This return is not to fix something,

but to remember.

To remember who you were before all the explanations.

With gratitude and silence,
Zohar Leo Palffy de Erdod
“Between Thoughts”