Content warning: This article includes references to suicide and death.

There was only one thing scrawled onto the torn notebook page in my hand as I crossed the parking lot of a small San Clemente commercial building, late to my therapy appointment.

“Figure out how to work faith back into life.” 

It was mid-June, and I had recently become suspicious that faith — whether in the context of organized religion or otherwise — might be a kind of cheat code for inner peace. As part of this investigation, I visited a cemetery for the first time hoping I would be struck by some kind of spiritual element. Now, I was seeking my therapist’s counsel.

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She seemed optimistic that, despite my hopelessly existentialist outlook, I could still negotiate a sort of relationship with faith — one that might sort out my fears about death, fate, love and purpose.

Three days later, I lost a close friend of mine to suicide. They had a hilariously irreverent sense of humor, and I found it impossible not to secretly hope that the cloud shaped like a penis floating in the sky above their funeral was one of their jokes in awful taste. My ambiguous agnosticism was tested in the coming months, as I had to decide exactly where to place myself in the cosmos.

I grew up Catholic with a very personal relationship with who I believed was God. I “prayed” to Him in my head throughout the day; I bartered with Him, asking for favors like placing me next to my crush in class, and telling Him to feel free and give me a bad day in return. I admit, it felt pretty good to be personally acquainted with the omnipotent lord of existence; I did not have to worry about my career, finding love or hard times.

As I grew older, though, I became skeptical, gradually falling out of believing in the traditional, He/Him God individually observing the universe. But, as William James writes in “Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking,” “the most violent revolutions in an individual’s beliefs leave most of his old order standing.” In other words, I still had the inner infrastructure for the kind of magical thinking that substantiates faith.

Entering adulthood and USC, the world suddenly felt radically indifferent to my existence, especially because I still did not know what I believed in. Isadora Swann, a senior majoring in theater as well as non-governmental organizations and social change, also grappled with an existential untethering from faith — faith that was once the source of her radical security for the future.

“I just so deeply knew that I would be good and that I would be successful … that completely disappeared when I started to hit obstacles when I was older,” Swann said. “It was suddenly like the world became a dangerous and scary place where anything was possible and nothing was certain.”

Uncertainty does not need to stop us from making sense of the universe — religion is just faith at its most structured and defined. Faith is also present in smaller scale, rudimentary systems like “everything happens for a reason,” “I don’t chase, I attract” and “everything will work out.” These are tenets that require a certain degree of magical thinking and faith, and I see them affirmed every day by religious, agnostic and atheist friends alike.

Jewel Abdo, a senior majoring in public relations and advertising as well as dramatic arts, explained that although she’s not certain what the higher power is, she is sure there is one and finds comfort in it despite the ambiguity.

“If something bad happens … I’m like, ‘It’s okay, everything happens for a reason. This has a reason,’” Abdo said. “If something good happens, I’m like, ‘Yes, this is part of the plan.’”

Some even wrap these primitive faith systems into a kind of personal religion. I often see this force named “The Universe” — a mysterious, natural entity whose sum total plays out similarly to God in a practical sense, only more mysteriously. Abdo reflected on coincidences she believes are too calculated to be chance, blaming “The Universe” for mischievous interference.

“The past week, I crossed so many people that are like my opps … in a romantic [context]. It’s like, what are you doing here? I’ve never seen you … You’re the only other person that’s walking in my direction. Like, that’s crazy … What [is ‘The Universe’] trying to say?” 

The thought of a universe with a sense of humor, like a friend who knows you too well, is reassuring. It reminds me of the friendship my childhood self had with God. 

The most optimistic notion, though, is that it is okay to be uncertain. That it is not all or nothing. As Swann notes, even amid the process of figuring out what you want to believe, you can still pick up faith on the way so you’re not reeling through a nonsensical existence:

“We get to decide what we want to bring with us forward: what systems, what routines, what ideas we want to choose to be our reality,” Swann said. “When we’re young, we’re told this is how it is and then at a certain point you step outside of that, and you’re like, wait, this isn’t just inherently how it is … You decide that you do want to believe.”

Kevin Gramling is a senior writing about his search for meaning amid the daily chaos of being a USC student. His column, “The (S)existentialist,” usually runs every other Monday.