A Photograph

Thoughts on the human condition

What makes life worth living?

This is the age-old question. Philosophers and clergymen have pondered it for millennia, and have offered their own guesses. There are the hedonists, who say it is about pleasure, the nihilists, who think that the answer is nothing at all. Some people claim that their purpose is to create, or to experience as much as they can. Others would say the answer is love. Still, none of these answers have fully satisfied the question. The primary struggle, the primary curse of the human mind is its constant struggle for meaning.

What makes the simple task of being content with our own existence such a constant battle for so many of us? Why is it that, even when we find something that makes us happy in the short-term, we still find that after a while it is no longer good enough? We always seem to need more. Perhaps some of it has to do with our choices. We resign ourselves to bad situations—jobs we don’t like, friendships we cling to out of fear. But sometimes it’s stagnancy itself that brings about discontent. We can hold in our hands exactly what we want, and once we have it, the allure wears off. The yearning is what excites us, not the thing itself. It’s a paradox—we crave security, and yet when we find it, there is still something in us that aches for change. If we found heaven itself, that elusive ideal that we all dream of, would we be happy even there?