Why Do You Keep Thinking?

You have surrendered to the fact that things will always be as they currently are. I know — I know. This sounds so obviously untrue. This sounds nonsensical because is not the case that:

tomorrow you will be a day older,

the number in your bank account will change,

you will meet new people,

you will go to new places,

you will have new experiences,

but, in your mind, you know nothing really ever changes.

Of what use is a

new relationship,

a bigger house,

a more prestigious award,

a different view in a different country,

when, in the end, nothing ever changes?

The greatest wonder of all is not

the pyramids in Egypt

the evolution of life

or even the inception of the universe.

For such things are abstract phenomena that a person may choose to study.

But do you choose how you feel? Is it like choosing to pick up a history book because you’re interested in World War Two?

Or is feeling something different altogether?

One may prepare in advance for an exam at school,

one may strategically improve their health for a better blood test at their next hospital visit,

one may carefully plan their career and finances to ensure they have X amount in their bank account by a certain year,

but is one to do about the assaults they face in every conscious moment?

What strategy can one hope to formulate to consistently avoid an unsavoury thought?

What plan of attack can one possibly piece together to vanquish the pang of anxiety that is going to hit them in exactly 5 minutes and 34 seconds?

What hope does Man have in the fight against his mind?

Dumbfounded, he instead turns to provide extraordinary care and attention to all those things that give him the illusion of control.

He will obsess over

his net worth,

the recognition he has in his field,

the attractiveness of his partner as well as his own.

And where does he find then find himself?

He lives a life where he first takes one step back

anguishes in the pain of his setback,

and then slaves away in an attempt to move forward.

Where does he then find himself?

In the exact position he was in before he took one step back.

Twenty years of age. Thirty years of age. Sixty years of age.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS MAY PASS FROM HIS BIRTH ON THIS PLANET.

And every single one will have been spent doing nothing more than shuffling back and forward.

One step back; one step forward. Two steps back; two steps forward.

And on, and on, and on.

He was vulnerable to anger at twenty,

and he remains just as vulnerable at forty.

He had a propensity for envy at thirty,

and he remains just as jealous at fifty.

At least when he was younger, he could blame his problems on the ignorance of youth.

But age can no longer be his scapegoat.

Perhaps the names of those who cause him anger have changed,

perhaps the sources of his anxiety are different,

But he remains, as ever, embroiled in these feelings.

Where has all his thinking about his life gotten? WHAT has he spent his life thinking about?

If only the external details of his life have changed,

after five, ten, or twenty years,

and his internal state remains impoverished, malnourished, and troubled as ever,

of what use was any of his thinking?

What value did his net worth really bring him? Where did his schooling, networking, and businesses get him?

What did he discover in the partner he expended so much time and effort looking for? Where did his grooming, dating, and pick-up lines take him?

Could it be that he has spent his entire life thinking and searching for precisely all those things that are devoid of value?

Who likes to swallow a hard pill?

But if life’s problems have never ceased,

and his mind remains as occupied and frantic as ever,

what can he make of how he has spent his life?

What has he spent his life thinking about? Why has he spent it like this?