Confronted with a world composed of seemingly durable, essentially unchanging elements, we sense that real satisfaction must lie in manipulating these elements in such a way that we construct the ‘perfect’ situation. The situations we habitually find ourselves in are always to some extent unsatisfactory, yet it seems to us that merely certain modifications would solve the problems that happen to disturb or irritate us. But however much we reorganize this and change that, eliminate one thing and introduce another, the perfect final arrangement forever eludes us. An unexpected event suddenly interrupts, a previously unnoticed incompatibility starts to glare uncomfortably, we discover that we cannot rely upon such a person after all. Or if the external situation seems at last to be in order, a vague aching sense of boredom and uneasiness may fleetingly taunt us in the pit of the stomach. We may feel suddenly imprisoned and lonely among the frozen images of our own design. Whatever the case, we rarely pay any heed to these inconsistencies, but swiftly cover them up with the habitual screens of our mental and verbal chatter. We continue to insist that the final solution is just around the next corner, waiting for us in the arms of the salesman or perhaps the psychiatrist. In this way we mistakenly apprehend the manipulation of particular entities to be essentially capable of producing satisfaction, when in fact it is not so.
[..]
In addition, having recognized those things that cause harm as ‘inherently undesirable’ and those that give pleasure as ‘inherently desirable’, it appears that suffering could be eliminated and lasting satisfaction gained through the simple process of rejection and acceptance. Consequently, we fill our lives with plans and projects to manipulate the self-contained chunks of the world to our best advantage. Motivated by desirous attachment for what we want, and aversion towards what we dislike, we absorb ourselves in the task of building up the ‘perfect’ situation around the cherished unchanging kernel of the self. As long as we continue to believe in the possibility of success, our interest and enthusiasm remain, shielding us from the threat of anxiety or doubts. But should a gap suddenly open up and disclose to us the essential futility of such an approach to life, the bleak landscape of ignorance will stand before us: the world of numberless unrelated self-enclosed things.
– Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism by Stephen Batchelor
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Mark Carrigan 