Aspiring Existentalist On Hunt To Find Reason To Search For Self

Story by Carson Vaughan 

| Published Sep 30, 2008

Kyle Thurston won’t stop looking.

He can’t stop, he says. There has to be something more. There has to be something wrong.

There has to be something missing, something only he can understand.

Something he can shout out in an empty canyon and write about in an empty journal.

Something to make him question everything.

“I need to find that void I’ve been missing,” Thurston said, smiling. “And I won’t stop until I find it.”

For more than two years this Friday, 29-year-old Kyle Thurston, a happily married father of two and aspiring existentialist, has been hunting to discover a reason to search for himself.

Although he has found no leads since he began last October, Thurston maintains his determination to find a reason to be dissatisfied with everything.

“Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about preparing for a hiking trip in the Cascade Range,” he said, rotating in his chair to grab his Bose stereo remote. “Maybe I’ll find something to let me down there.”

Graduating from the University of Washington-Seattle in May 2002 with a degree in political science, Thurston is now the assistant director of Community Unity, a non-profit organization in Seattle.

Despite wide praise from both clients and Community Unity employees, Thurston said just thinking about what it would be like to not want to get up every day for work is enough to make him stay in bed for several minutes after his alarm.

“There’s just so much despair out there,” he said. “I want my slice. I want to make sure I’m not missing out on a life of misery and tragedy.”

According to Thurston’s wife, Rose, Kyle has been talking a lot lately about acting odd. Community Unity rumors allege that Thurston has applied to work at a coffee house and may resign from the non-profit world.

Close friends say he has been spending a considerable amount of his time window shopping at various head shops throughout the city.

“It’s hard to see him like this,” said Jeff Bentz, a close friend of Thurston. “These last two years have been rough on us all. Kyle used to be perfectly content. Now he’s never happy unless he’s thinking about what it would be like to be miserable.”

Thurston shows no signs of letting up. He recently scheduled an appointment with an optometrist, suggesting to the receptionist that he “most likely needs glasses, probably with the coke bottle lenses.”

With 20/20 vision, Kyle has never worn glasses or contacts.

His Internet home page is set to the Wikipedia entry for “existentialism.”

Thurston’s Seattle Public Libraries account shows he has read only Albert Camus, Soren Kierkegaard and issues of O, The Oprah Magazine, over the last 24 months.

Nevertheless, the Thurston family plans to enjoy a long weekend sailing the Puget Sound in its recently purchased Beneteau sailboat.

Thurston said he plans to spend the majority of his time at sea staring off into the horizon, attempting to feel what it’s like to be disheartened by a beautiful ocean sunset and a family that loves him very, very much.