Your life is important, at least to your ego, because it is the only one you have. I’ll admit that it is very possible that you and your ego will not see eye to eye on this point on cloudy days, or even most days during the rougher patches of life. I will also admit that an argument of this nature is no balm for most of us, who don’t care, when in low tide, about what one’s own ego thinks, or what others think about one’s ego, because this particular desert is always crossed alone when the tide is low.

Your life also matters, even if you find it hard to believe, because you occupy fully a certain exclusive position, you have carved an irreplaceable place, no matter how small, in someone’s heart, even if it is only in that of your dog, who adores you to infinity and beyond, perhaps the only infinity that exists, both in this life and in the next — if there is one, which is beyond my reach.

Your life is important because it gives meanings to that of others. Not all The Meaning, of course, only meanings with a small m, sort of like being needed by the other three bridge players, or by the baker, who depends on your daily purchase — meanings, at the end of the day. A little meaning here, a little there... and very soon you are giving lots of meanings to lot’s people.

Your life matters, I repeat, because there is someone who is happy to see you, even if you are nothing more than an unworthy recipient of affection who has never done anything for anyone. Let’s take for example the famous dog Blondi, who inspires more sympathy than his infamous master. In any case, I don’t think that a murderer of such caliber would ask himself this type of question, because such people always know the answer and tend to get busy with more gruesome matters.

Your life is meaningful, anyway, even if it doesn’t seem to amount to much, which is only your opinion.

Your life is important even if your ego is not unique and not very different from any other ego, even if this argument rubs you the wrong way, especially on cloudy days.

Your life also matters even if your space is reduced to yourself, like a prisoner buried alive for life, because it depends on a unilateral decision on your part.

Your life is important even if there is no purpose below or above your present finitude, because no one can take your purpose from you, for it is very much yours so long as you decide so. And then, whatever will be, will be — or won’t be, but it won’t matter.

Your life matters even if you are a terrible bridge player and your partner prefers you as an opponent, because, as long as there are only three of them, there is no bridge without you.

In short, your life is meaningful, like it or not, even if you are a madman, because none so blind as those who will not see and there will always be someone who sees someone valuable in you, even if you are the murderous owner of a good dog called Blondi.

I met someone invaluable, a gem of a person, years ago. I didn’t know what to do with that vase and it fell from my hands, breaking into a thousand pieces. With patience, I continue to redo the puzzle, but some pieces are missing, they had turned to dust. Even where nothing was missing, water oozed. I could no longer keep the fresh roses that I occasionally put in there. It had become a desert of a vase, dust in the form of baked clay, but dust nonetheless. It would happen again.

An affectionate white cat had me. She didn’t cross the ocean. I left her in a friend’s arms, literally, at the last minute. I missed her and, furthermore, my absence was shorter than expected, but it was too late. She was happy in the yard of another house. I missed her.

I had a sweet cat, who also didn’t cross the ocean, this time much to my regret. He loved me like a dog, and he even played fetching with bottle caps I made roll, which he brought back to repeat the game. Since he was a cat, the game only lasted two or three times. Since he was a cat, that was a lot already. I still miss him, and I miss other pets that brought me joy in other times.

I had a place of adoption, in the absence of a native place where I felt at home. Now I am neither from here nor from there, just bits and pieces scattered around various places. People consider me cosmopolitan, and they say it with admiration, but I am a foreigner to locals and a local to foreigners. They know it and I know it. You can see it from afar. I’m easy to spot. Like those rich migrants coming back home after years, but without their money and without their big house.

Not having grown up with money, I was lucky enough to see some of the natural wonders of the world, the ones we’ve all seen in travel brochures. They look different in person. I was lucky enough to see the Grand Canyon several times. I mention it because this canyon is, for me, something from another world.

I got to watch Hollywood movies with the eyes of a local — the houses, the fire hydrants, the street signs, the way the characters see the world is completely familiar to me, not as a movie set, but like real life itself, as familiar to me as a home movie from the late 20^th century. I feel at home in both worlds.

I have met wonderful people. It is amazing to meet such wonderful people, even though they pass through the same desert, have seen identical vases broken beyond repair, have suffered the loss of beloved pets or feel like strangers in two lands. Maybe because they don’t think about these things or because, despite everything, they also know wonderful people.

I woke up today with a without, like I was missing something, or better, as if something was missing from my life; however, I know that can’t be true. I look around me and realize that I am not missing anything, yet I feel that I am. It is a contradiction, clearly, one that follows its own dictates and not those of reason — a free spirit.

Simply put, I am not a person today. More like a desert, dry. Not for all the gold in the world would I recommend my fad state to you. But don’t be alarmed: I don’t have enough gold to fool you. I don’t even feel like trading places with you, plus I might end up burning my fingers. Today’s pessimism gets the better of me and I don’t even dare to envy your lottery numbers.

There are days when you wake up well after dawn and it is still the middle of the night. Those dark days of the mystic poets last forever, like those of the prisoner in a dungeon who doesn’t remember the difference between night and day anymore. Those days I don’t have anybody, and the canary stopped singing deep in the mine. Those days do not deserve this name.

Yesterday was different, although I think that by mid-afternoon the wolf was already showing its ears above the hill. And I say I think because some days cover their yesterdays with such a thick veil that it obfuscates everything what came before, nights so deep that are even capable of transubstantiating the pleasures I experienced into acid rain, not to mention the havoc they wreak on their mornings, which all of a sudden look like the pitch-black throat of Beelzebub.

Indeed, some days are hell. To make matters worse, not a hell full of disappointments and setbacks worth of sympathy, as one might expect, but rather an arid punishment, more guilty the more inexplicable. When faced with the surprised question from others, the only possible answer, and an accurate one at that, is I don’t know. There is no culprit to point an accusing index at, only pure guilt.

Nothing happens, not even time, which cautiously prefers to step aside and let things take their course on a dry river bed in the desert. Time stops still in this desert, and you hit rock bottom where there is none.

And all this just because, because I woke up today with a without. Just like that.