WHAT DO WE WANT? – PART III

Now we know that given, say, two men both 55 years old that even though they are chronologically the same age psychologically one may still be a child and the other a mature adult.  It seems we will continue to find men and women who play the game of desire with all the zest of a ten-year-old; even though they know nothing else they will die with the sense of having lived to the full and will leave proclaiming that ‘life was good.’  And, there will also be others who ‘play’ similar games, and play them just as well, yet find the rewards inadequate.  Let’s take a brief look at the second type.

The world’s visible rewards are still strong attracters.  They throw themselves into enjoyment while building up their holdings and advancing their status and power.  They also come to realize that the pursuit and the attainment of these things bring them no ‘true’ happiness.  In addition, some of the things they want they fail to get and this brings on misery.  Other things they get hold of for a time and then lose them and again misery enters.  Still others obtain and keep the ‘things’ only to find the experience much like the famous golf pro who won his first ‘major’ remarked to the person standing next to him as he received the coveted trophy “Is this all there is?”  In all cases, each success seems to fan the desire for more and none are truly satisfying nor are any enduring.  At this point, some cry out in anguish, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity!”

A few will come to the realization that their troubles lie in the fact that their satisfactions are limited to the smallness of ‘self’ that is being served.  Then a question emerges into their consciousness: “Might not becoming a part of a larger, more significant whole relieve my life of its obsessive and oppressive triviality?”  This question can lead one to the beginnings of ‘religion’ [religion from ‘religio’ — to re-bind, to make whole].  This ‘true religion’ begins with the quest for meaning and value beyond the self.  As one searches and seeks one discerns that the human community is a good candidate [which is one reason many professional golfers become consistently good, if not great, golfers once they marry and have children].  In supporting at once one’s own life and the lives of others, the community has an importance that no single life can command.  This shift of focus results in the person the first call of religion which is ‘duty.’

In response to this new sense of ‘duty’ to the community, one passes beyond the ‘wish to win’ and embraces the ‘wish to serve.’  There are ‘rewards’ for serving and there is a dark side to serving, which is to make others dependent on the one who serves.  Thus, serving requires one to be ‘mature’ and to seek the ‘best for those served’ [as Greenleaf asks: “Do those served grow?”].  But even this serving others proves to be inadequate for it remains finite and tragic; tragic not only in the sense that it must eventually come to an end, but tragic also in the sense that it will never be perfect.  The ‘want’ of we humans still seems to lie elsewhere.  But where?