Nothing is certain in life but death, taxes, and existential dread

Understanding absurdity and naming it might be our first step toward sanity

I’m just gonna go ahead and say it: Adulting right now f*cking sucks.

To start with the obvious, we’re living through a time of extreme uncertainty, constantly barraged with headlines about a trade war and tanking global economy, a government coup led by the world’s richest man, the collapse of our social safety net, and the impending threat of massive floods, fires, and tornados… Oh, and how could I forget nuclear war?

It’s dizzying, to say the least. Yet the mundane tasks of life—like paying our taxes—still demand our attention. Unless, of course, you're a billionaire trying to cheat both death and the IRS—one cryogenic chamber and offshore bank account at a time. We still have to load and unload the dishwasher, buy toilet paper, go to work, and look at spreadsheets. Not to mention the fun parts of life, like planning a vacation, going to a friend's wedding, or celebrating your child’s birthday. All of those are still happening too.

Despite the normalcy of our daily to-dos, nothing feels normal anymore. Could you ever have predicted a world where we buy weed in stores and eggs on the street?! This video sums it up perfectly, and it’s more than just the residual effects of the pandemic. Something has changed. Something is changing. We’re not just living through a disastrous news cycle but through a paradigm shift.

And it’s not just politics, pandemics, or the planet. Now, AI is both quietly and loudly reshaping every essential structure of human life—changing how we work, create, connect, and even define what it means to be human. It’s not just a tool. It’s a mirror, reflecting back our fears, our ambitions, and the uneasy question beneath it all: What is a human life worth, in a world where machines can do almost everything?

This gap between what we feel—things are definitely not okay— and how we’re expected to act—business as usual—is both disorienting and exhausting because of the cognitive dissonance it creates. And it has a name: existential dread.

If you’ve been feeling it lately, you’re not alone.

The absurdity of life

Psychologists define existential dread as the anxiety that arises from confronting life’s big questions: Why am I here? What’s my purpose? What’s the meaning of life? Is there a God? If God exists, what is the point of suffering? Why do innocent children die of cancer? Is there life after death? Are we living in a simulation? You get the idea. I’m talking about all those big juicy topics you tend to avoid because if you think too hard about them, you start to have a mental breakdown.

But these days, it’s hard to avoid thinking about them. Existential dread is being triggered all the time, for the simple reason that we are facing an increasing number of existential threats to our society, our survival, and our very humanity. So it feels less like an occasional spiral and more like a constant hum in the background. The more the external world seems to spin out, the louder it gets.

This is likely a core factor in the general rise in anxiety and depression that we’re seeing right now. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 31% of U.S. adults experience an anxiety disorder at some time in their lives. I would wager that number is likely higher since most people don’t want to admit they have anxiety.

It’s not just Gen-Z—the generation with the greatest anxiety and poorest mental health— who are taking a cold hard look into the abyss of an uncertain future. All humans, at some point, ponder what their life really means—what it’s all for. This pursuit can give rise to both a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, or to anxiety, dread, and despair.

Existential pondering isn’t necessarily negative. In fact, when we’re able to honestly engage with and make space for these big questions, they can be a powerful and constructive way to greater connection, clarity, and meaning.

In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl writes:

"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a ‘secondary rationalization’ of instinctual drives. The meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone, only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning."

It’s hard to make space for pondering life’s meaning when you’re tied up with the tasks of day-to-day existence. But when we don’t have the time, resources, or emotional bandwidth to engage with existential questions when they arise— and we’re forced to shove them aside so we can answer emails, make dentist appointments, or chauffer children from one sporting event to the next—the dread secretly implants itself into our body and like any buried emotion turns into anxiety.

We humans are meaning-seeking creatures, and our brains are wired to find patterns—we seek purpose and meaning because imagining a future is part of what’s allowed our species to survive. But when the future starts to feel uncertain, sometimes you begin to question the nature of reality itself.

That’s what makes existential dread so slippery. It’s not just fear. It’s disorientation. It’s a kind of spiritual vertigo. You’re not just anxious—you’re untethered. Floating through space, trying to find your footing in a world that feels increasingly absurd and impermanent.

In The Myth of Sisyphus, existential philosopher and writer Albert Camus described the absurd as the inherent contradiction between our human impulse to ask deep questions and search for meaning, and a belief that life and the universe has no inherent meaning or purpose. Even if it did, we, in our human form, would not be able to comprehend it.

The absurd isn’t just a philosophical theory, it is a feeling. A feeling which you can either try to embrace or escape. We want life to make sense, to follow a story arc, to reward effort and punish wrongdoing, but the world doesn’t always work that way. It’s chaotic, unfair, weird, beautiful, terrifying, and tragic.

And still, we’ve gotta take out the trash and recycling, buy our groceries, and of course, pay our taxes.

Checking out is human

Everyone responds to this existential dread differently. It can look like numbness. Or rage. Or fatigue. Or a sudden craving for meaning that sends you spiraling through self-help and spiritual hot takes at 1 a.m.

Lately, I’ve been checking out.

Not in an "I can’t get out of bed" way. It’s more that I’m actively choosing to step back from the news cycle to focus on what matters to me. And for the first time, I’m not shaming myself for it.

I just don’t have the capacity right now to grieve the entire future of democracy, while building a business, keeping up with the mundane tasks of life, and showing up for a life that’s already full.

This season of my life is both beautiful and completely bonkers. On the personal side: I’m planning my wedding (while attending six others), supporting friends and family through pregnancies, cancer treatments, and celebrating milestone birthdays. On the professional side: I’m exploring opening a hospice in Denver, writing this newsletter, supporting my death doula clients, and building Hello, Mortal’s end-of-life planning platform from the ground up.

I’m not complaining. I know better than most that grief and joy can (and often do) coexist. Yes, I’ve probably bitten off more than I can chew—but it’s my choice. And that’s the point: you have a choice, too.

I’ve decided to say no to the news and yes to myself. I’m not listening to my daily rotation of political podcasts right now, and I refuse to feel guilty about it. Does that come from a place of privilege? Sure. But does listening to the news pay my bills, stay physically fit, or deepen my connections with the people I love? No. Does it help me give back or fix our collective predicament? Also no.

In psychology, this kind of “checking out” falls under the umbrella of dissociation—a built-in nervous system response that helps us survive overwhelming moments by giving our minds a break. Sometimes, that looks like a trauma response. But it also looks like something far more ordinary: daydreaming, spacing out, getting lost in thought.

If you’ve ever driven home and not remembered the drive, or lost time to a book, a song, a fantasy, a shower thought—you’ve dissociated. We all do it. And in healthy doses, it can be a gift: imagination, insight, even protection. Some of my best creative thinking happens in those floaty, untethered spaces. But like any coping mechanism, dissociation has a limit. It can shield us from overload, but if we never return, it severs us from life. From meaning. From ourselves.

I still care deeply about the world. I’ve just stopped trying to carry the weight of all of it at once. I’m choosing to invest in what’s right in front of me, because that’s the only place I can create real change.

So if you’ve been checked out lately—if you’ve felt numb, zoned out, or totally disinterested in doomscrolling your way through the latest disaster—you’re not broken. You’re not selfish. You’re not out of touch.

You’re human.

And if we’re being honest, the existential dread is so prevalent right now that not even this season of White Lotus could distract us from it all, but at least Mike White tried.

How to go from existential dread to something real

Hopefully by now, you’ve come to realize that existential dread is a rational response to an irrational world. It makes sense to feel off-kilter when the world feels like it’s teetering. But even within the absurd, there is still beauty, humor, and connection.

As Camus put it: “The realization that life is absurd cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.”

From his point of view, in lack of knowing the meaning of the universe, every action we make, every decision we choose, and every value system we adopt is arbitrary. In other words, we choose our truths and beliefs because they comfort us.

So, when you find yourself spiraling, doomscrolling, or crashing out, the best thing you can do is ground yourself in what’s real and comforting. Not in a toxic-positivity, “just focus on good vibes” kind of way, but in a tangible, sensory, I-have-a-body-and-it-needs-food-and-love. Notice what’s real. The way hot coffee burns your tongue. The sound of water hitting the shower tile. The touch of your partner’s hand. This is aliveness.

Once you do that, the challenge then becomes: how to stay connected to that deeper awareness—as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it: “You are alive against stupendous odds…most people who could exist will never exist”—without being overwhelmed or distracted by the demands of daily life.

It’s not a philosophical question. It’s a practical one.

How do you live like you’re dying… when you still have to go to the DMV?

We’d love to know how you are coping with your own existential dread these days.

– Maura