Just One Question | James Hollis: Why Am I Here?

Chris: Hello and welcome to Just One Question from Insights at the Edge. I’m Chris Rock.

Mallory: And I’m Mallory Corbin. We’re producers at the Sounds True Podcast Network. We work with Tami on Insights at the Edge to bring you transformational ideas from wisdom teachers around the world.

Chris: And every week on this show, we pull out some of the most inspiring, most transformational ideas from those hundreds of conversations, and we bring them to you in the form of one question and one answer.

Mallory: Thus the name, Just One Question.

Chris: We hope you enjoy.

This week, Mallory, I want to share one of my favorite authors that I found through Sounds True, and that is Dr. James Hollis, who insists on being called James.

Mallory: Oh my gosh, he is just the sweetest man. I love any time I get to work with him.

Chris: He’s great. I was a little starstruck when we—

Mallory: I remember. I remember.

Chris: So James was my gateway into Jungian psychology. He’s written a lot about that, and about finding meaning in life — especially later in life, which is where I happen to be.

Mallory: Oh, you’re not that old.

Chris: Just waiting for you. Anyway, when he talked with Tami in 2025, he had just published Living with Borrowed Dust, and there’s a lot in those essays about life and death and meaning and, as you will hear, the abyss.

Mallory: Sounds ominous.

Chris: What I love here is that Tami asks him what he means by the abyss, which he defines as the openness of being. But then James brings his own question, because he says that the abyss opens every time we ask a radical question. And what is a more radical question than “Why am I here?” So that’s what he asks back.

Mallory: So you’re already flipping around our format here, Chris.

Chris: You’re right. Yeah. Let’s break it.

Mallory: Yeah, I guess so. So here’s James Hollis asking Tami and the universe and us, “Why am I here?”

Chris: Stay with us.

Tami Simon: “Find what you love and let it kill you.” That’s a very powerful phrase. I was reflecting on that when I was reading Living with Borrowed Dust, and the chapter that got my attention the most in terms of what I love had to do with staring into the abyss. Believe it or not — maybe a strange thing to love. But you go on to say that one way we can think of the abyss, and you offer how it was defined by Heidegger, is as the openness of being. And that’s really what I love. I wanted you to talk somehow about how you understand this sense of infinity, if you will — openness of being, as not having any end to it — how you understand that in your life.

James Hollis: Well, I think the abyss opens every time we ask a radical question, a truly radical question. And remember, radical comes from the word radix, which means root. Going to the heart of the mystery. Why am I here? That’s a lifelong question. That’s a lifelong project — rather than having it as we all did when we were young, myself included, planned. You know, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that, I’m going to do that. And then somewhere, life happens, and it all gets pushed to the side. Not irrelevant, not unproductive, but it gets pushed to the side. But really: why am I here?

And it was revelatory to me, too, when I came across that quote in Heidegger, because you think of the abyss as what’s going to swallow you. And certainly there are abysses that can swallow us — at least swallow up the ego. But when he said it’s the openness of being, I suddenly realized how many times our structures, our habits, our addictive patterns are really ego protections against uncertainty. And the fact that we fear mortality — there’s no uncertainty about it. The statistics are pretty obvious. It’s virtually one hundred percent. The question then is, what does that make you do with your life? Or what does that keep you from doing in your life? When you address that, the opening occurs.

You might be threatened by that. A person will say, you know, I always wanted to do this, or I want to do that. Well, what’s keeping you? Well, it’s the fear of the magnitude of it. Life is intimidating. One message we all got in childhood, and it’s factual, is that the world is big and you’re not. The world is powerful and you’re not. So how are you going to function for a number of years with that?

And I talked about that in the previous book, on meaning, Tami. And that was: well, we developed patterns of avoidance. Patterns of trying to get power over smaller situations to give us the illusion that we’re in charge of larger questions. Or we just sort of give the world what it wants and try to stay out of harm’s way. Or we often get caught in narcissistic inflation, thinking that we’re somehow really important in the big scheme of things, or that we need constant reassurance from people or situations.

So that’s understandable. It’s a human coping mechanism. I’m not judging that. I’m simply saying all of that is a way of avoiding the complete unknown of this journey. And that can be intimidating. It can certainly be something that humbles us. But it’s also an adventure. And the question is, how are you going to live your life in the face of that? That’s the question. We touched on it before — how are you going to live your life in the face of that over which you have no outer control? And that’s a task inside here.

So when I was in the hospital and there were questions about whether I was going to live, and I was in a lot of pain, I knew that I was devoted to my wife and children and other people on this planet. I knew that I loved this work, and I would do that in whatever fashion I could, not knowing how long it would last or how impaired it would be. And I also knew at some point I would have to give up this work if the body has its final argument, which it always does. And yet I don’t think I was ever in despair. I think my feeling was — and I don’t want to sound grandiose here — but it was also an adventure. This is all very curious.

I was just working with someone who was having her first surgery, which turned out better than anybody expected, but she didn’t know that going in. And I said, you know, among other things, this is an incredible learning experience. Watch what they’re doing around you. Watch what they do, ask them why they’re doing that, and learn something. And the good news is, that attitude — she said, when I went into the ER, or rather the OR, I felt actually calm. I was curious about what everybody was doing. I said, exactly. Ask them what anesthetic you’re using, and what do you expect on this and that, and what do you plan here. And I may sound like a nosy person, but hey — my body. So why not? You’re entitled to a question or two.

So I don’t want to sound untethered from reality here. Fear is normal and natural. We all have it. Anxiety can be crippling and pervasive. We all have that. But again, what keeps us from being sort of drowned in that is the determination to take the next step forward in a direction that makes most sense to you at this point in your life. Churchill said once, when you find yourself in a dark wood, keep walking. Keep walking. You know, if you’re in the middle of the forest, you’re halfway through. The only point is, we don’t always know it’s halfway. But you keep walking. Keep going forward.

I had enormous desire to return to my relationship and to return to this good work, and I know that pulled me through. But otherwise — I said to the surgeon, quite literally, because I had two serious spinal surgeries, and the second one going in, I thanked him as we were going into the operating room. I thanked him and I said, all I ask is that you do your best. I’ll do my best. And I want you to know I’m grateful for your good efforts — because he warned me there could be some serious consequences.

I don’t think he’d ever heard that from anybody before, but it was totally sincere. I was flushed with gratitude that he and his whole team were going to do the best they could for me. And the fact that I’m here is that they did a pretty good job. On the other hand, sooner or later it’s the end of the journey. This journey, at least.

But underneath all of that, it is like: what fires the imagination again? What are the big questions? How are you to live your life with as much courage as you can mobilize? And sometimes life breaks us down. I understand that. And live it with as much dignity as you can. I’m not talking about pride or arrogance. I’m talking about knowing that you’re the master of your own soul. And just remember that nobody can take that away from you unless you give it away.

Chris: This has been Just One Question. You can listen to the full episode of Insights at the Edge that this conversation was taken from on your preferred podcast platform or at soundstrue.com. Thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you next week.