What is the significance of middles? Editing my creative nonfiction essays, I’ve noticed my pieces consist entirely of beginnings and endings, and are practically devoid of middles. It’s almost as if I am scared of insignificance—I see beginnings as an introduction of crisis, an opening of worldview, voice, and vision while the end is the horizon that defines what the whole story meant and why it matters. But the middle—the 75%—isn’t that supposed to be the story? And the meridian—the very middle of the middle—isn’t that supposed to be the truth? 

In Save The Cat, a novel plot structure broken down into 40 beats, the 50% mark (called the “midpoint”) symbolizes a false victory or false defeat depending on if the story is a victory or a tragedy. This is also the point where the character realizes what they want is not what they need, pushing previous pressures into their control and shifting the goal of the story. The meridian, therefore, is a divergence, a revelation, oftentimes even more fundamental than an ending. A midpoint is when the tectonic plates catch but the earthquake is yet to start, when the character gets a taste of what they thought they wanted but somehow feels worse, when we realize the story we’re living in is already half over, half determined, half written by a previous version of us. 

At midday, we realize the Earth, too, is but a story, reworked everyday with every cycle. At the meridian, like with Zeno’s paradox—significance is just as the start of truth. 

One of the definitions of “meridian” (a word that comes from a Latin phrase meaning “midday”) is the lines of longitude defining how we perceive the Earth—from timezones to navigation—even though the Prime Meridian slicing the globe in half was arbitrarily placed. Similarly, in Albert Camus’s existentialist novel The Stranger, the turning point is the everyman Meursault’s seemingly meaningless murder on a summer day at the beach. Surreally overwhelmed by the midday heat, the light reflecting off of the victim’s sword supposedly compels him to pull the trigger.

According to fellow existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, humanity is “condemned to be free,” the consequences of our choices as piercing and relentless as noontime sun. For Issue 14: Meridian, I’m thinking about the uneasy stupor of suburban summer, of prosperity confused with intoxicating excess, of heatwaves rippling the image of reality, of making sense of the senseless if only to live with ourselves. I’m thinking about the endless decisions we must make—the infinite meridians marking our existence into a “before” and “after” in every moment. 

Recently, I’ve begun to rely more on the idea of luck—whether it’s the luck from solving the New York Times games right before I sleep or repeating affirmations to myself before and after a test, my anxiety immediately dissipates when I convince myself that the universe will act the way I need it to. So, when the theme for Issue 14 was decided, I immediately felt drawn to the idea of meridians in acupuncture: channels in which qi and spirit flows through the body. When even one of the twelve meridians is blocked, a body’s balance is off-kilter. Each of them is connected to one of five elements (fire, earth, metal, water, and wood) and either yin or yang, perfectly dispersing energy.

Before a guard competition, my team focuses on our breath seconds before we go on stage, when the crowd is cheering for the school before us. Breathe in the good energy. Breathe out the nerves, the self-doubt, the negativity. Meridians ground me in a similar way to this: knowing that there is always good energy flowing through my system, creating the beauty of balance, no matter where—or who—I am.

I like to believe that every single being on this planet has a center. Just as a semicircle has a center point, and all its coordinates come back to meet it, there is always a mid-point that connects all the different pieces of a person to their consciousness, to their existence. The Earth is one of these things; a constant reminder that the silver lining of existence depends upon the center it is built from. 

However, if we were to view the meridian the way the English dictionary asks us to, we would be confined within the imaginary lines of the north and south poles. An artificial essence created to make it easier for humans to navigate the vastness of this Earth. To give it a center through which they can make sense of the world. The belief of the Earth's center contradicts the virtues we have been taught. 

The notion challenges all the times we have been told that this world is constructed in a series of events, none of which coincide. This thought process tells us that Noah’s Ark is not responsible for all of humanity's survival and that humans do not live on this dirt because Adam ate a fruit from the forbidden tree. Issue 14: Meridian picks at my consciousness; I ask this question repeatedly: does the world have a center? And does this center determine the way the entire world is created? This time around I hope I can provide myself with a concrete answer; this time around I hope the center of existence is clearer than it was before.

One of humanity's most admirable qualities is the way in which we define our existence. Meridian, a line to divide the world. East and West. Ante meridiem and Post meridiem. Before and After. And yet, on the grand scale of the universe, our carefully drawn lines collapse and we are faced with the truth: all of it is meaningless. 

'Meridian', to me, is recognising the inherent beauty of human invention despite its inherent meaninglessness. I think of the famous verse from Ecclesiastes: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, and there is nothing new under the sun. The sun, blazing in the noon's heat, the star which we chose to split our time in half. The sun, blazing overhead in its oppressive heat as the humans below, navigation and cartographic tools in hand, stared out into the vast blue depths of the sea that merge into the pale endless sky at the horizon. In awe and no doubt afraid, yet determined to find their places in the unending blue. 

There is something audacious about our human ability to use these giant celestial bodies, older than we could even imagine, to count down the hours in our fleeting lives. And there is something beautiful in this audacity. Vanity of vanities it may be, but here we are. On this pale blue dot in the unimaginably vast universe, carving out a place for ourselves. 

The ancient Egyptians believed in “Ma’at”—a zenith in the cosmic balance of life and death, law and morality, truth and balance. Likewise, the Great Pyramid of Giza was meticulously aligned with solar paths, distinctly separating the “underworld” to its west from the lively city centers to its east. For thousands of years, whole societies have thrived and contracted through the unaltering, eternal journey of people’s souls. Reflecting on a personal level, Friedrich Nietzsche warned against complacency and senseless adherence to societal morals at our “meridian”—a point of mid-life realization. As humans, we can either choose to continue self-evolution through embracing challenges, or succumb to a stagnant cycle of mediocrity.

For Issue 14’s theme: Meridian, I’m thinking about the creation of forced binaries through explicit divisions and our abilities as individuals to question our freedoms to defy existing moral, religious, and societal expectations. To me, meridians are tucked behind social interactions, the corner turns on afternoon strolls, the blurry lines between coexistence and eradication, the categorization into rigid binaries. It has drawn me to our lifelong internalized responses in a world restricted by perpetual external, environmental cycles—the sun, the seasons, and societal “norms.”

If I had to describe March in a phrase, I would call it a season of change—of paths solidifying and possibilities dissipating, of wrestling with the fickle ideas of gratitude and gratification. I believed, as dramatic as it sounds, that I’d exit this month as someone different from how I entered it. 

Yet now that March has come to a close, I wonder if, all along, I have been walking along a path that presents itself more as a meridian of change, not a wall to cross over. That it’s a road I reference my growth to, instead of a line to judge before and after. And as this season comes to a close, I’ve come to realize that, at its core, the fundamental concept of a meridian is all truly imaginary. 

Today, I’m reminded of the Coastline Paradox, which posits that the coastal measure of a given landmass changes proportionally with the scale used to quantify it. To approximate the length of a coastline, we estimate how many straight lines of length l it would take to fully border it. Coasts aren’t made of straight lines, though, so the border won’t ever be aligned perfectly. Instead, trying to trace each fractal nuance limning a landmass only leads to an infinitely increasing measure of length and decreasing value of l.

Similarly, the Prime Meridian is the arbitrarily placed line marking 0° longitude on Earth. It’s used to demarcate time zones, but really, the barriers between hours and minutes dissolve through each other like salt through water. In looking for the exact physical node at which time shifts from one hour to the next, I imagine you’d find an ever-narrowing spatial singularity—an infinity in its own right. That’s why for Issue 14: Meridian, I’m reminded of people who live in between, in foggy memories and hazy ambitions, who carve up little infinities for themselves, who press their own time into them. I’m reminded of stories that (re)draw the lines to (re)orient the narrative.