A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, by Ernest Hemingway

The story speaks about those who live with everything but have nothing, and also those who are older and more experienced and have already tired themselves of the routine of life, and know that there is something in those who are rich and need a clean, well-lighted place to escape and get drunk. Life is meaningless without a deeper meaning other than what we see. The erratic dichotomy of reason and the supernatural is what causes the modern man to be completely desperate. See, if there is nothing else to life, if having faith requires a quantum leap from reason, then, if you are a rational creature, as all men are, you cannot accept faith. And if you cannot accept a greater reason for your existence, then we are all just matter, stuff, and no meaning, no greater purpose, no truth and no love. A life without these things is, as Hemingway describes through the character of the older waiter, "Nada", or "nothing". It's empty. Even if you want to find something, all you can do is sit, ponder, get drunk, but the feeling won't go away. Existentialism's only escape is suicide, which is what many resorted to, including Hemingway himself. It is too bad that because people have separated truth into a top and a bottom, into reason and faith, into separate branches that have "nothing to do with each other", like supernatural and natural, when in reality truth is a whole, and cannot be cut off from itself. The post-modern man is even more confused, because he can act irrationally, against his own reason, by accepting an UNREASONABLE faith or belief in the supernatural, that has "nothing to do with" reason and science. The truth of the matter is, the definition of reality as two split irreconcilable halves is INCORRECT, and therefore unacceptable, even if you are seeking spirituality, it is not through admitting that it is separate from reason, but by realizing that both are all part of the absolute truth. That is the only way you can have both reason and love, logic and meaning, and it is what life is made up of. We can't have only one or the other, but we also cannot have both if they are conflicting ideas, so we must come to the conclusion that they are both parts of a greater whole, rather than separate branches that necessitate an unreasonable "leap of faith". I am not saying that faith is a myth or that we shouldn't have it, but rather that faith is a part of reality just as logic and reason and rationale are part of reality.