McCarthy captures something harder than "find meaning in hardship"—he's saying that ritual and intention themselves are the substance, not decorations applied to something real underneath. When a widowed grandmother insists on setting the table properly each evening despite eating alone, she isn't pretending; she's actually building the thing that matters most, which is dignity. The quote's peculiar genius lies in "construct ceremonies *out of the air*"—not discovered or earned, but made from nothing, which somehow makes them more honest than waiting for circumstance to hand you something to celebrate.