The Human Problem

It is a terrible thing...to be seeking something in this life; yet it seems that I am always seeking something. Always looking to the future, waiting for the thing to come along that will change all of this. I see that I am upset more people do not see this is going on in their minds as well. I hate that humanity is so blinded by itself. It seems that we are all so consumed with attaining and becoming more. To be something more is an endless internal pursuit. It does not matter how much you attain, learn, change, grow, the pursuit is never over and the fight continues on. This is not a fight that we are comfortable with, yet we do not know anything different. The only thing that the mind can do is hope to gain enough knowledge to break itself out of this pattern, and yet it is the very pattern and movement of the acquisition of knowledge that creates the problem in the first place. One cannot strive and desire to be desirless since the very thought in itself is a desire.

What then is one to do? When every day is a fight, a struggle full of fear with only brief moments of contentment and peace. What is one to do when one sees that all "I" have are thoughts and the subsequent memories those thoughts have created and clung to as the ultimate truth. The longer one lives, the more thoughts and memories are accumulated and built up into the structure of the thing that is called "me". It seems that once a mind has accumulated enough knowledge, thought becomes constantly active trying to control the future based on the past memories it has accumulated. It is like a ball bouncing endlessly in a tiny enclosed room. In order to control ones future, thought is always projecting ideas of what could be and what should be. It seems to the bouncing ball in the tiny room that it needs to gain more knowledge to expand the boundary of the walls so that it will eventually expand large enough to encompass everything and will then finally be able to predict all outcomes of life. The ball will then be safe, secure, happy. The ball does not see that it itself has made the walls in which it is housed and that the dropping of those walls is something that it is unwilling to do. There is so much fear about what exists outside of those walls.

I cannot ignore this fundamental problem that exists within me and seemingly the rest of humanity. Most others around me seem content to go on living in this way while ignoring the symptoms. I feel like I have come to a point in the middle between ignorance and action. I cannot ignore this problem, nor am I willing to move past where I am as it seems it would ultimately mean my death. The death of my ideas, my thoughts -- all that I believe what makes me, "me". Thus I want to have my cake and eat it too...alas life does not work like this.

It is a terrible thing to be human, born into the slavery of a mind which appears fundamentally flawed from day one. I can see this is why I get such a sad and helpless feeling when looking at children sometimes. I see their future, I see what is happening right in front of my eyes yet I feel powerless to do anything about it. Afterall, I am more caught in the chaos of an enclosed mind than they are. Babies are innocent because they have no past and no future. For them, everything is now, but it does not take long before that changes and thought starts trying to control in an attempt to escape pain and sustain happiness.