Tomorrow, I turn twenty-five years old. I am still quite young by most standards. I probably have a long way to go before I can share my life story with anyone so that they might walk away from it with some insight (or at least get a good nap). However, I do feel inclined to write a bit about some truths my short life has revealed.

For most of my life, I have put entirely too much stock into other’s perceptions and opinions of me. I have always tried with every fiber of my soul to mold and shape myself to other’s likings. My craving for attention and acceptance consumed my every waking minute and dominated every aspect of my life: who I hung out with, what I said, what I ate, the clothes I wore. I lived for the limelight, and when on stage, I usually performed pretty well.

Within the past year or so, through a series of events, this life I had built up crumbled to absolute bits. What I thought I wanted was thoroughly shattered. My personal identity was dismantled. I was at a low that I probably haven’t fully described, nor desire to describe, to anyone. Through time and self-examination, I realized that I had built quite a house, a mansion, which impressed almost anyone who came across it. But then, for the first time in my life, it stormed, and my house didn’t stand a chance. The rain fell and the torrent came, the winds blew against my house, whose foundation was made of sand. Everything I ever held important crashed down in a mad rush.

I hurt. A lot. I also learned a lot about myself. I wanted to be known and talked about in the outside world because inside myself I was empty. Inwardly there was no richness. I craved, more than anything, to be deeply loved. But I wanted to be loved because I did not love.

But the moment I did begin to love, it was finished. A heart full of love never asks to be loved, it never puts its begging bowl out to society asking others to fill it. When one is inwardly rich, it does not matter whether he is known or unknown. It is only when emptiness exists that one asks to be filled. The irony? Fame, fortune, cars, homes, esteem from peers, cannot give us that fill.

Isn’t this what our current lives seek? Running around changing jobs, relationships, hobbies, shoes, so that we can somehow be filled? I certainly don’t want to say that we shouldn’t be able to enjoy possessions, material things, and esteem from men; rather, I hope that we don’t build our lives around such things. Why? Because we will never be anything but temporarily satisfied by the non-eternal in the things of this world.

Yet looking around, you can see that these very things are precisely what we are trying to fill our gaping holes with. I tell you, just as I was, some are very good at filling those gaps with the things of this world, but we can’t predict the weather. One day, even if it takes until our death, the winds will change, and all the possessions and reverence this world offers will be washed away, proving themselves nothing but a temporary fix.

We seek outward love and richness because to be inwardly rich is much more arduous. If one has just a little talent or wit and can exploit it, outward riches and attention will follow. To be inwardly rich implies standing alone.

I realize I have a long way to go.

I was humbled, and my worldly desires were tamed.

These series of events in my life have changed more than my outlook on myself, but also how I see Man and how I see the world.

What do I think of Man? Man is a very funny being. History has shown over and over again that he thinks his true work is to build civilizations that come crumbling down in a few centuries, bringing about wars, talking of peace and justice while seizing power and being remorseless. All this work leads to destruction and distress, chaos and despondency, and like the dust it is made of, dust again it will soon become. Extreme poverty exists side by side with great luxuries; disease and starvation neighbor health and exorbitance. Look at our outer world; it precisely mimics our inner values and what we cumulatively are — how can it not? Our current world, the state of affairs we are in right now, this is the work of Man.

Such begs the question: is that all? Is there not something more that is the true work of Man? I imagine once we find what that is, then jet planes, refrigerators and skyscrapers will all have wholly changed meanings. The true work of Man is to discover truth, some kind of transcending truth that is apparent and shared among all things. A kind of truth that cannot be discovered in that which can be seen, touched, owned; as these things are always temporary and finite. The true work of man is to love, but not to love the temporary and finite things of this world. Truth and love are eternal, and to build our lives, our houses so to speak, upon these principles is to lay our house on a foundation of rock, able to stand up to whatever outside factors may challenge its structure.

This love, true love, a love that we in this world cannot fully realize but can only strive for; this is our only hope. And when it arrives, I know we will be led to a different civilization — a new, awakened humankind.

Behzad Varamini is a graduate student in Nutritional Sciences. He can be reached at bv29@cornell.edu. Gain Through Loss appears alternate Wednesdays.