Something Missing Syndrome.
That's what I call the disease that everyone's afflicted with. Well, almost everyone.
Just as SMSes are so prevalent these days, I find that a great many people are struck with this other kind of SMS that cripples them.
As one speaker at a talk once said, "even if we gave you free money tonight, you would not know how to take it." Believe it or not, I saw it happen.
So, what's the problem? Hmmm, it's not easy to describe.
I reckon it's got a lot to do with the social values these days... and the corollary of lack of self-awareness. And awareness of one's surroundings, too.
From a cosmic/philosophical vantage point, this is not a new phenomenon. People, since ground zero - even before the term was coined - already had the delusion that happiness comes from "out there", or some such notion that clouds their minds from reality.
Thus, believing that they can only achieve happiness by pursuing this that or other, they end up chasing some cosmic tail, which is even more difficult than chasing one's own tail.
In the end, people just see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and all they know is what they have seen and heard. And so, not knowing very much, not thinking very much - accepting secondhand opinions as the truth - people get caught up in a vicious cycle that is a spiral down to either depression, disaster or more delusion.
This may sound harsh... It's just that day in, day out, I see people either ignoring or refusing to contemplate the possibility of a different way of seeing things, doing things - even if it helps them alleviate some of their pain... the pain caused by that Something Missing Syndrome.
The answer? I don't pretend to be a Zen Master, or even close to resembling the toenail of one, but I guess my previous post does provide an answer, albeit in an obscure fashion.
As one commenter noted, "What kind of story is this?" Well, precisely the point of the Zen Master... If only we had enough attention - or awareness - to what is actually happening around us AND ALSO within us, then we will naturally know what we need to do to transcend our current condition.
Alas, social values today places a great premium on fast, big, flashy whatever. That kind of "philosopy", we've heard of - I call it the "material imperative". Along with that, we now have the notion that urgency is most important, not importance itself. Tell me, can you tell the difference between urgent and important?
Well, luckily for us, there are actually people out there who can tell us the difference between what's important and what's urgent (and not necessarily important). Like old times when humanity had sages to tell men and women how to transcend the human condition, there are personal development and success gurus that can point us in the right direction (at least in terms of being effective and dealing with stress).
Putting aside the skeptics and the cynics, let's trudge on on this path. Indeed, because of our distorted social values, we have what seems to be unlikely sages that have come to tell us of how foolish we are and how we can regain control of our lives - salvation - and free ourselves from the shackles of materialism and ignorance.
Sounds far-fetched? Well, think back for a while... In their own times, all the great teachers were ahead of their time - Socrates, Lao Tze, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad...
Let me just end on a more optimistic note. We have had many ages... the Ice Age, the Dark Ages, the Age of Reason, the Information Age... well, perhaps the Age of Wisdom is just round the corner...
You may think this is airy-fairy stuff... fair enough, it may be. I'd rather have a positive airy-fairy outlook on life, than one filled with SMSes.