continued

Sometimes I wonder how all of this will end.

We're so caught up in a moment--even when we're thinking about the future, about what we want to do with life. It's pathetic, but I see it happening in myself and all around me.

And are you just like me? Dead eyes, dead eyes, are you just like me? Her eyes, her eyes were as vacant as the seas, yeah. Dead eyes, dead eyes, are you just like me?

People are looking for happiness. People are really bad at finding happiness. Why do they make themselves miserable by convincing themselves they can find it alone?

Of course, many people realize that their search for happiness is fruitless, emptying, and masochistic. There's a tempting solution in Buddhism, well... sort of tempting. Telling people that suffering is only caused by desire sort of undermines the whole premise that I started with, which is that people are looking for happiness. More importantly, the whole idea is self refuting:
In the Buddhist world, desiring to not suffer brings you suffering. If you don't care whether or not you suffer, then it's a moot point.

I'll wait for you forever, but I need you now...
I have found, you can find, happiness in slavery...

Those two quotes embody what I believe. I want to live this:

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.
2 Corinthians 2:15-17

The Bible troubles me a lot. It makes it clear that the only way people can be happy--something all people truly desire--is to be in Christ. It also makes it perfectly clear that not everyone will be in Christ; I mean, just look at Romans 9. That's troubling, to say the least. And God said let there be light? Yes, yes he did. If you want to accept that much, accept it all--either that, or don't touch any of it. Accepting one part of the Bible is mutually inclusive for all other parts, and mutually exclusive for all things that contradict any of those parts. There's no way around that.

Why can't people find satisfaction? Why do they turn to all the different avenues of escape our culture has built? My answer to this question is that they don't have Christ. Now, whether that's only true in a temporal sense (a person who is elect [adj., def. 3] but currently in rebellion) or true in an eternal sense (a person who is reprobate [def. 2]) is beyond any human detection. It makes me sad, it makes me happy. But I know that happiness is from God, and from him alone.

Don't even go down the path of "that's nice, glad you found your truth, leave me alone." If you apply an ounce of logic to that relativistic worldview you'll gut yourself like a fish; if you don't apply any logic at all, the gutting will be even worse. If you want to be happy, you must give yourself to Jesus. Call it old-fashioned, call it idiotic--call it whatever you like. The Bible predicts that this message will be foolishness to unbelievers. I hope it haunts you when your life falls apart, stagnates, and rusts.