inward

Nothing in the external world is what it appears to be. It's more like we're fed ideas about things and then project and pursue those ideas, usually expecting them to bring fulfillment of some kind or other. But the nature of the external thing itself, whatever it is, is essentially empty, transient and inherently deceptive/illusory on the sensory and cognitive levels. It can therefore never meet our expectations or satisfy for long before we turn our attention to the next, which is essentially the same thing in a different form.

I've been entertaining a theory that life is meant to get progressively less satisfying on an external level in order to drive us ever deeper inward. Sort of like a journey and a return. External events seem to continuously move in directions which make those things increasingly unappealing. The scales continue to tip and the pendulum continues to swing but at a certain point forces converge and there's nowhere left to go. We all lose our capacity to roam and pursue someday, whether by the will of others, the breakdown of the body or the dissolving of desire into awareness. Eventually the last refuge left is within.