What do we do when we don't know what to do? Where do we turn when we don't know where to turn? Confused, desperate, lost in this storm of mirrors, where we are forced to make the choice as to what is real and what is not. We have all felt like this before, this void in us that we just cannot fill. It is no longer just a "bad day", it is now starting to extend longer than we previously thought. We don't know what "it" is, all we know is we are left feeling alone, searching for something we don't even know what to look for.

These feelings happen to everyone in life. The happiest people on the planet have felt this before, and for some it lasts a few days, and others much, much longer. It is an awful situation to be in, as loneliness can be such a powerful negative emotion. It stops us in our tracks and not only makes us miserable inside, but forces us to wear this mask of "I'm fine", and even though we aren't fine, how do we possibly describe this experience to another?

In December of 1977, a man named Daniel Everett and his wife and two children arrived in a remote village in the middle of the Amazon jungle in Brazil. They were sent to a tribe called the Piraha, by a Christian missionary organization known as the Summer Institute of Languages (SIL). Everett was an ordained minister and he was set with the task of learning the tribes language and linguistic attributes, so he and his missionaries could later translate the Bible into this, and spread the Gospel even further. Unlike any other missionary however, the Piraha was considered the last frontier by the directors at SIL, and had a language largely regarded as the most challenging language for any outsider to learn. No one outside their tribe was ever able to accurately communicate with them. They have been practicing their unique communication for centuries, without any contact from the world around them. Everett was one of the SIL's most promising linguists, and he was more than excited to take on the challenge.

The first few months he spent with the Piraha, he tackled their language with great intensity and energy. He used all his previous knowledge he learned at SIL, and began copying down everything he heard from them onto index cards, in which he carried around everywhere he went. He was making slight progress, but still began to feel the distance between the indigenous tribe, and him. His wife and children nearly died from malaria, and he soon found one night that the Piraha men had gotten very drunk, and were out looking for him to kill him. On one other instant, Everett and his wife were trying desperately to save a dying Piraha infant, and were surprised how little empathy the child got from the other tribesmen. Later they found the baby had died, the Piraha had forced alcohol on the baby, and Everett could not help but feel some disgust of this event. No matter how well he thought he knew these people, they proved time and time again to be wildly unpredictable, and did not measure up at all to the many other Amazon tribes Everett had read of and worked with. The Piraha had very little care for material items, and nothing in their village seemed to last very long. They had very few rituals, and had no real folklore or creation myths. Among the disappointment of all of this, Everett still had made hardly any progress on their language. The more words or phrases he observed, the more puzzled he seemed to get.

Finally, a roof of one of the village houses needed to be fixed, and Everett saw his change to get closer with the Piraha men and ventured into the jungle with them to gather supplies to fix the problem. They moved through the jungle so swiftly, and he was not nearly as fast as any of the men, so he stopped to take a rest. In the distance, he heard odd sounds and noises, and it was the Piraha men speaking to each other. It was a collection of very similar sounding whistles, a marvelous way to talk without attracting attention, a great skill in hunting.

More and more he would travel with them deep into the jungle, and gain more knowledge of their exceptional way of speaking. They seemed to have heightened senses, and could foresee danger long before it happens. The more he immersed himself in their culture, the more he began to look back and see the past incidents in a new light. The Piraha faced threats on a daily basis, they had no time for rituals or myths. They could sense death, and rather than waste time mourning it, they chose to get rid of the pain and move on. When they tried to kill him, they believed he was another outsider trying to take control of their village, and feared him. Everything was starting to make sense now to Everett, and as he more understood their ideals, he began to better understand their language as well. The Piraha had no system for counting or numbers, no words for colors either, but rather described things through phrases that related to real objects. Instead of a "dream", the Piraha would describe "what is in your head when you sleep." A theory soon developed that Everett would later call the Immediate Experience Principle (IEP).

Everett soon became fully immersed in their culture, and he saw what a simplistic tribe they were. They got only what they needed to survive, and it made them remarkably happy to live in their own culture like this. Everett found that imposing Christianity on them would only destroy their remarkable way of life, and even he himself later left the church after his experiences here. Everett went into their village eager to learn a language, but soon learned far more than just that. He discovered the real meaning of the Piraha, and the meaning of fully immersing into what you do not know. He was lost in the beginning, not knowing what to do or how he can possibly learn from these people, but found not just a fascinating language and culture, but a new meaning to life that would forever change him as an individual.

Understand: We all go through times where we are lost and seemingly cut off from all we think we should be knowing. But these times ae not random, for they happen for a reason. We spend so much time feeling like we will never find whatever it is we are looking for, but often it is far simpler than we think, and we come out of this situation with a much stronger outlook on life than we went into it with. This is growth, this is what helps us to develop into better people. It may not always be weeks of feeling lost and confused, but the occasional bad days that show us a wide view of the life we are living, and a close up of how we can do better. I challenge all of you to remember this when you feel lost, afraid, confused, or seemingly hopeless. Think of Daniel Everett and the Piraha, and rather than giving up on yourself, fully immerse yourself in your heart. No matter how indigenous, mysterious, or unknown your problems may be, there is always a way of understanding. Life reveals it's secrets to those who dare to follow their heart.