Why Human Beings Exhaust Themselves Chasing Versions of Themselves They Would Not Recognize Upon Arrival
A modern man lives for the enjoyment of the future. Happiness keeps moving, and what was once desirable is constantly replaced by the next thing, the next city, the next body, or the next social status. Desire is no longer an inspirer, then. It has evolved into atmospheric pressure.
Under this condition, there’s an unsettling paradox that is revealed. People work hard for years. But for years, they haven’t analyzed their dreams. They desire honor. They pursue wealth. But they can find no rest. They are in a hunger for romantic fulfillment with no contentment with themselves.
The mind’s imagination is incredibly inept. Every achieved goal eventually becomes normal. Validation tends to have a short shelf life once it has been ingested. With repetition, no matter how much success we achieve, it becomes domesticated.
This never-ending discontent hints at a terrible truth about people –
Desire can sometimes last only as far as distance.
Individuals, therefore, subconsciously sabotage completion. They preserve yearning because it gives them movement, identity, and narrative tension.
Stillness terrifies them.
The silence reveals the void inside in a way that is intolerable.
Persuading is not the way advertising works. It’s in the way it humiliates. It subtly informs the individual that he must augment his existence in order for dignity to be allowed. Humans imbibe these suggestions all day long until insecurities start to become the persona.
When a person cannot be satisfied in the commonplace world, he or she brings his or her own hunger to all the extraordinary experiences. Metaphysical emptiness cannot be exchanged for external abundance. Estrangement from oneself cannot be compensated for with any possession, no matter how big.
Hence, this is the reason why some people are at ease in their humble homes. And some people are a mess inside despite being at their best of fortune.
The tragedy is this – countless human beings give up their finite lives for futures that they have created in their own imaginations. And in their imaginations, they have created them based on expectations. For decades, they have been climbing up buildings they never really wanted to live in.
Then one morning, amid applause and achievement, they arrive at the horrifying realization that they have spent their lives serving an unlived self.