Life is incredible difficult at times. And then, at the end we die. It certainly must have been easier before we developed consciousness, the “knowledge of good and evil”. But, we can’t go back. As Sartre noted, there is “No Exit.”

Most of us cope adequately at least. But there are so many who do not have the resources to cope and life just beats the hell out of them. I know a few who fall into this category and they struggle even though they have so much going for them. Auden likened them unto the “toy of some great pain.” It is as if some darkness has enthralled them and will not let them go and it has nothing to do with intelligence, or will power, or moral integrity.

People in the grip of this pain often despair completely and make horrible choices, some of which we read about in the head lines. Others lead “lives of quiet desperation.” We must always remember that:

The Void desires to have you for its creature,
A doll through whom It may ventriloquise
Its vast resentment as your very own,
Because Negation has nor form nor feature,
And all Its lust to power is impotent
Unless the actual It hates consent.
(W. H. Auden)