8: Pascal explains why you're an alien

On the invisible chasm between caregivers and the world

Pascal believed that most people live in a state of “somnambulism,” a sleepwalking existence fueled by diversion. They remain asleep to the reality of their condition because they are too busy with diversions. As a caregiver, however, you have been jolted awake. While friends and family are out chasing trivialities, you stand face-to-face with the most profound truths of the universe: love, sacrifice, and mortality. To Pascal, your pain is not a pathology; it is the “fitting and proper reaction” to these massive realities. It is far better to be a conscious, “miserable” human who knows the truth than a “happy” person living a lie.

This awakening creates an inevitable social chasm. Because you spend your days confronting the “natural unhappiness of our weak and mortal condition,” you have lost the capacity for distraction. Conversations about bad Wi-Fi or awkward brunches, social media brags about vacations and job promotions – it all feels absurd, even offensive.

When you speak, you inadvertently “puncture” the diversions of others, serving as a walking reminder of the mortality they are desperate to forget. This makes them uncomfortable, leading to their withdrawal or the “toxic positivity” of those who refuse to hear what you are saying.

Pascal’s philosophy explains this disconnect perfectly: you are operating in different orders of existence. He taught that the order of charity cannot be understood by people in the lower orders of worldly power or mere intellect. Pascal wouldn’t suggest you “fix” your friends or force them into the dark, despite his writings all doing that to the reader.

Once you realize they literally cannot see what you see, your resentment might turn into a strange kind of pity. They aren’t being cruel; they are simply still asleep on the pillow. Even in your loneliness, you are in the “highest” company. Your life feels out of proportion with theirs because your soul has grown to accommodate a larger reality. This lonely ache is not emptiness – it is the newfound spaciousness of your own heart.

The modern world adds a layer of guilt to this isolation by framing “advocacy” as the caregiver’s primary moral duty. We are told that love means never accepting a “no” from a doctor, making Pascal’s advice—to acknowledge our “weak and mortal condition”—feel like giving up. We feel a moral weight to exert constant control, fearing that to accept mortality is to betray the patient. Pascal would argue the opposite: the true betrayal is pretending the patient isn’t a mortal being just to satisfy our own need for agency.

To embrace this truth is to intentionally dismantle the 21st-century illusion that we are the masters of our fate. We must admit that billions of dollars in research haven’t closed the “gap” Pascal identified 350 years ago. Our desires remain infinite, but our power remains finite. Doctors and medicines have their limits, and grieving that reality is not a failure—it is the honest acknowledgment of the human condition.

You can survive this “pre-modern reality” by practicing what Pascal called finesse. You can chit chat and make trivial small talk. Just do it without letting it touch your core, without denying the reality in your heart. You can be in the world of diversion without being of it.

Pascal surrounded himself with other people he knew were living their lives in the order of charity. You can find other people who are also “sitting in the room.” Find the other caregivers and those who have moved through deep grief—the people who have made an honest estimate of life. With them, the need to perform ends. You can simply be.

Lack of courage

For people who rely on constant activity to keep their inner demons at bay, the silence of a sickroom is terrifying. They flee the room because they are fleeing the thoughts that the room forces them to have.

Pascal’s explanation for why friends and family withdraw from the terminally ill isn’t based on a lack of love, but on a lack of courage. In his view, a dying person is a mirror that forces everyone else to look at their own mortality—and most people find that sight unbearable.

When a friend enters a sickroom, they can no longer pretend they are immortal. Their diversion from the realities of the human condition is punctured. They withdraw because they want to go back to the “pillow of ignorance” where they don’t have to think about death.

Most people want to “fix” things. When a friend is dying, there is nothing to fix. This creates a radical psychic disequilibrium. Because the friend cannot fulfill their desire to “make things better,” they feel helpless. To avoid the honest estimate of their own helplessness, they stay away.

The result is that friends make excuses not to visit. They change the subject and only discuss trivial things. They refuse to acknowledge reality and insist the person will recover and everything will be fine. Or they vanish entirely. They cannot handle the reality of the human condition.

These friends are not yet strong enough to face the truth of what we are. They are choosing the “pillow of ignorance” over the honest acknowledgment of unhappiness.

It is a failure of their philosophy, not a failure of your relationship.

Grief and inefficiency

Today, we pathologize what Pascal considered the most honest part of being human. If you grieve “too long,” the modern world offers a pill or a productivity hack to get you back to living like everyone else…those everyone else’s who are busy keeping their heads on the pillow of ignorance.

The DSM-5 (the manual for mental disorders) now includes “Prolonged Grief Disorder.” While clinical help is vital for survival, Pascal would argue that “prolonged” grief isn’t a malfunction; it is a recognition of a permanent hole in the universe. To cut grief short is to lie about how much that person mattered.

Following Pascal’s advice today requires a quiet, rebellious commitment to inefficiency. Don’t try to meditate to clear your mind, since that’s often just another way to achieve a “result.” Instead, simply notice the discomfort. If you feel sad, bored, or anxious about mortality, that’s the start of the truth.

Pascal talks about hunting and gambling as a diversion. His idea of what might be a diversion is pretty broad. It includes feeling like you must “optimize” your grief or “learn a lesson” from it. It includes using social media to feel “connected” so we don’t feel the “incertitude” of our own minds. He doesn’t want us to find the bright side. The questions to ask are: Does this need to be done? Am I afraid of what I’ll feel if I don’t do this?

At first this seems a little ridiculous. Of course we need to clean the house, pay the bills, do all the things on our to do list. But I know I’m not the only one who has a sudden compulsion to clean when I’m overwhelmed. Sometimes I jump into action on chores because I need to feel like I’m doing something. This is exactly what Pascal is talking about.

Pascal’s idea of honesty can feel heavy, but it is meant to lead to a deeper kind of peace—one that doesn’t depend on things going well.

Pascal’s famous indictment—that we cannot sit quietly in a room—is the caregiver’s daily existence.

Through Pascal’s eyes, that room is no longer a prison or a waiting room for the void; it is a laboratory of the soul. Through Montaigne’s eyes, that same laboratory is also a living room. While we are thinking reeds contemplating the abyss, we are also physical creatures who require the small, earthly consolations of a warm cup of tea, the weight of a sleeping cat, or the simple finesse of a shared glance.

Pascal tells us not to scroll away the ache or run from grief. That emptiness is not a malfunction; it is the spaciousness of your own heart finally making room for the infinite. But in that spaciousness, allow yourself the Montaignian grace of the ordinary. Pascal gives you the courage to look mortality in the eye and choose to stay, but Montaigne gives you the permission to find a soft pillow in the small pleasures that remain. Not every pillow or small comfort is the pillow of ignorance.

You may feel like an alien to the “somnambulists” around you, but by merging Pascal’s depth with Montaigne’s humanity, you find a home that is both vast enough to hold the truth of death and cozy enough to sustain the reality of life. You are finally, profoundly, and truthfully home—standing in the light of the stars, but with your feet firmly on the ground.