The weather, the phase of the moon, our parents, our race/gender/religion/socioeconomic situation/relationship status, our education or lack thereof, a down turn in the economy, that guy at work, our genetics, bad luck, our weight or metabolism or health...there are a million reasons, or rather excuses, why we are the way we are: unhappy, unsettled, uncomfortable, restless, dissatisfied with life in general and ourselves in particular. But we think life will be better when we fix the problem: lose the weight or get a new job, or get counseling for things beyond fixing, like our childhood, but it never lasts, not for long anyway. We're like the kid before Christmas who has his heart set on X, life will be so wonderful when he has X, but two weeks after Christmas, X is gathering dust in a corner and life is probably the same, if not a little more drab since X failed to fix it.
It isn't a new diet or boyfriend, it isn't travel to exotic places or adopting a dog; all that is wonderful for its own reasons but none of it will fix your life. As a culture, we are obsessed with finding the problem or placing the blame outside ourselves, certain that Something must certainly be the problem, if not This then maybe That. But nothing helps, we're still left feeling like a square peg in a round hole; like a jigsaw puzzle missing the last piece. It is the root cause of most of the evils in society and the world at large: someone decides to do something drastic to fill that gap and thousands suffer as a result. But those at the top are just as empty as those of us at the bottom of the heap. Power, fame, riches don't fill that hole any more than anything else.
I grew up in an emotionally vacant home, at least of all the good emotions; we had plenty of anger, shame, fear, and frustration. I've been trying to change that in my own family, but somehow managed to collide head on with my in-laws. They are extremely decent and nice people, but as a mother and daughter-in-law, they always seem to rub me the wrong way. I think I've finally figured out why. They both had rather wretched childhoods as well, leaving them scarred emotionally, and now that they are grandparents, they are trying to somehow 'fix' those scars by living vicariously through my kids. And being thus scarred myself, I've let them pretty much walk all over me only to resent it bitterly later. It's pretty much the same thing in the wider world, though the root cause of the injury varies from person to person, we are all trying to get whole and healthy through our relationships (or protect ourselves from further injury by social isolation), be it friends, lovers, kids, grandkids, employers or employees, we're all a bunch of burn victims trying to piece ourselves back together in the ICU with nary a physician in sight. This isn't to say we don't have good and honest intentions, we do, but we are so broken and hurting, and this yearning to be happy and whole is so strong and subtle a part of our nature that we do it quite unwittingly; it is very much a part of what we currently call the human experience.
Some people want to medicate or educate or breed it out of humanity, others think the whole race is too flawed and the only answer is annihilation. To some, science or technology must surely find an answer be it artificial intelligence or genetic manipulation. Some embrace their base nature and the evolutionist's creed, eager to be the strongest and thrive amidst their depravity. But nothing will fill that gap or sooth the unsettled soul, for there is no 'balm in Gilead,' or at least not on this mortal earth, or perhaps I should say wasn't, for the Great Physician has come and we no longer need to sew up our own wounds. But we are unwise children, too wise in our own eyes to see that we are wounded, let alone in need of a doctor; we continue to look to X to make us happy, and if that doesn't work, there is always Y...but the Answer transcends the whole alphabet, a single letter won't suffice, we need the Alpha and Omega and everything in between, nothing less will satisfy.
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