A long social gathering on the same weekend as the psychology lecture made the loneliness unusually clear. I was surrounded by people, but I had almost nothing I wanted to contribute to the ordinary conversation. My mind was occupied with these questions about evidence, belief, interpretation and trust. When I tried to bring them into conversation, it tended to become a one-way explanation rather than something we could explore together.
I do not mean that other people were shallow, or that their interests were unworthy. The problem was that the things occupying me did not seem to have a place. I wanted someone to stay with a difficult question, bring a different argument, challenge a premise, or show me evidence I had missed. I did not need everyone to agree with me. I wanted a conversation that could move.
“I don’t fit anywhere.” That was how I expressed it. Scientific questions, religious commitment and the difficulties of ordinary life were all present together for me, yet I struggled to find a place where they could remain in the same conversation. It felt as though everything around me had become a question mark.
When I said I felt lost, I was not saying that my connection with Allah Subhanahu wa Taala had disappeared. My thirst for understanding was not being met. I could not find where this need belonged, where I could ask these questions while remaining myself.
I was not looking for someone whose confidence I could borrow indefinitely. I wanted intellectual companionship, including the possibility of being shown that I was wrong. “Where are they right? Where am I wrong?” That question expresses the position more accurately than an argument for either side.