Something Else to Live For

"WHAT ISN'T THERE, IN FRONT OF OUR EYES, IS usually more real than what is.

We can see that at every level of existence.

Even when we're finally where we want to be--with the person we love, with the things we struggled for--our eyes are still on the horizon. They're still on where to go next, what to do next, what we want the person we love to do and be. If we just stay where we are in the present moment, seeing what we're seeing and hearing what we're hearing and forgetting everything else, we feel we're about to die; and our mind tortures us until we think of something else to live for. We have to keep finding a way away from where we are, into what we imagine is the future.

What's missing is more powerful than what's there in front of our eyes. We all know that. The only trouble is that the missingness is too hard to bear, so we invent things to miss in our desperation. They are all only temporary substitutes. The world fills us with substitute after substitute and tries to convince us that nothing is missing. But nothing has the power to fill the hollowness we feel inside, so we have to keep replacing and modifying the things we invent as our emptiness throws its shadow over our life..."

What's missing? For Pascal's answer, click here.

Peter Kingsley's In the Dark Places of Wisdom pages 33-34.