It is rare that one contacts the right set of objects in a favorable relationship within a given time and place. And even if this unique chance presents itself, it cannot maintain its perfection for more than a fleeting interval, since the particular set of objects has nothing but chance and movement to guarantee any permanence.

Thus, the poor envy the rich and wish to be rich. The rich look up to the king and wish they were the king. The king seeing the cheerful cowherd wishes, ‘If only I were so!’ The childless yearn for children; the unmarried desire marriage; the married yearn for divorce! The judge is jealous of the doctor; and the doctor moans, ‘If only I were an engineer!’ Each at the very peak of his material success comes to feel its hollowness and the incompleteness of even the best that material life can offer.

The race was taxing, the journey long, the efforts great, the endurance heroic, yet the achievement is but an unsatisfactory, flavorless glitter of happiness.

On closer inspection, the best of life’s victories exposes imperfection. and we are hurled into another thousand attempts to experience joy. Thus, from a desire to desire we are driven to seek and strive, never attaining what we actually want.