What are we seeking?

Bliss, happiness or contentment.

A heady brew if ever there was one.

Why?

Why those?

I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because we’ve a taste for them or we’ve been indoctrinated to believe that they will amount, brick by brick, to a life well lived.

As for something more grounded — real, if you like — well, as long as it doesn’t induce a sharp attack of nihilsim, pessimism or dark, brooding gloom, then you’re let off the meathook of life’s-not-worth-living or any other label that fits the mould of: ‘you’re not trying hard enough to make yourself happy’.

If this sounds too bleak, then fine, but all I know, from a lifetime of cheerleading, back slapping and pull-yourself-together aphorisms, is that none of it works — or not for very long.

We’re disposed the way we’re dispossed and if that means you see the glass half empty, with a bucket-sized hole in the bottom, where your life continues to disappear, then so be it.

Actually, it’s better than that: it might prove a better antidote to mainlining more self-help or guru worship which seems as in vogue now as when the world fell in love with the (largely) Indian gurus of the 1960s.

In my case, I only wish I’d not stuffed down so much of my questioning compass that continues to remind me that this anthropocentric world — i.e. one replete with humans — has a lot to answer for.

— Julian