Birth and death; we all move between these two unknowns.

The Unknowns Make the Middle Matter

Most people spend their energy worrying about things they can actually control—whether to take the job, how to fix the relationship, what to say in the meeting. But Bryant McGill points us toward something deeper: we're bracketed by two absolutes we'll never fully understand. Birth and death sit at the edges of our existence like locked doors we can't peek behind, which should be oddly liberating if we let it be.

The real usefulness of this insight isn't morbid—it's practical. When you're caught up in the small anxieties that feel enormous in the moment, remembering that you arrived here without choosing to and will depart the same way can shift your whole perspective. It's not about becoming reckless or nihilistic. Rather, it's permission to stop treating every detail of your life like it needs to be perfect or fully explained. You're moving through something larger and stranger than any single day's failures or wins.

Maybe the point is this: the unknowns at both ends don't make life meaningless. They make the middle—the only part you actually get to move through and shape—more precious and more forgiving than we usually admit.