Always Lacking

"Consciousness is always predisposed to find something lacking because lack is intrinsic to the very meaning of every situation for any particular consciousness. This is why, according to existentialist philosophers, a consciousness, a person, can never be completely satisfied. A person will always interpret  a situation in terms of what it lack for him. If he is cooking, the meal lacks being cooked. If he is halfway through a movie, the movie lacks an ending so far. If the movie is poor and he does not care about the ending then his situation is lacking interest.  If he is tired he lacks sleeps (tiredness is lack of sleep). If he has just woken up and is ready for the day he lacks the things he hope to achieve that day and so on and so on.

In general a person always lacks the futures toward which is constantly heading, the future which gives meaning to his present actions and beyond which he hopes in vain to be fulfilled and at one with himself. Ever onward, the endless march of time, towards a future that is presently lacking, an absent future that will fall into past as soon as it is reached, a past with its own absent future. It seems that the endless march of time constantly cheats us of what we are, prevents us from becoming one with ourselves, but really, what we are is this endless march forward in time, creatures that can never become one with themselves.


-from How to be an Existentialist by Gary Cox


So true, so true.

We are always living in the past or in the future, never in the moment. Our concept of self is always in the context of time; past self, past pain, past happiness projecting into a want for future happiness, a future self. There is very little of the self living for the sake of "now" and living with "now".

Also there is always the feeling of either too little time to do so much (lack of time) or too much time to make it of value (lack of fulfillment). No wonder it is so hard to be happy because we are constantly saddled with the burden "to achieve a future state of total completion in which we no longer lack anything".

All boils down to "tanha" (Pali for craving) don't you think?