Herman Hesse's novella Knulp is a great tale about the wisdom of not-knowing and our obligation to trust and rest in that vast space. It's a story about a man named Knulp (spoiler alert!) who spends his life wandering from town to town, from relationship to relationship, from job to job, never committing, never tying himself to anything or anyone. He's sort of monk-like but without any intentional matrix of practice. At the end of the story we find him dying in a snowstorm, believing that he's wasted his life. But he has a moment of clarity, a vision of God who says, "I wanted you the way you are and no different. You were a wanderer in my name and wherever you went you brought a little homesickness for freedom." What's so great about this story for me isn't that there's some secret significance or mission we each have but simply that each one of us belongs here in a very deep, undeniable way. Despite what we may sometimes believe or despite what other people or some cultural norm or government may say. Not only do we belong but we ourselves are intimately woven into the heart of the mystery of the world. If we look deeply enough we see that our lives and this mystery itself are not separate—even if we can't articulate why we're alive or what we're doing here. And even if we can articulate the whys and the whats of our life, surely it's an incomplete grasp. Surely, the most profound meaning of our lives lies far beyond words and worldly understanding. When replying to the question Who is this speaking to me? put to him by Emperor Wu, Bodhidharma famously said, "I do not know."