I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. (Eccl. 9:11-12)

***

Do you ever watch birds try to fly in a windstorm? These amazing creatures, gifted by evolution with just the right kind of bones, muscles, and limbs, can effortlessly soar hundreds of feet in the air and maintain themselves in skiey grace for miles and miles. But let it get nasty and blustery outside and these poor animals’ efforts quickly come to moot. I’ve seen countless gulls and ravens on a windy day frozen in midair, beating their wings in vain earnest and yet remaining immobile against an invincible wall of unforgiving wind until, exhausted, they’re blown about every which way and are forced to land. Only until the wind dies down can they move about freely the way Nature intended. And it may be quite a long time before the air is still.

I think we human beings can relate to this avian experience in an all too poignant and depressing way. Whether by God or Nature or both or something else, we have tremendous capacities to affect our environments and our own personal destinies through our free will, our curiosity and ability to learn, through our intellects, and through our courage, virtue, and ambition. Our species has accomplished much – a few members of it have altered history; and even the humble most of us, whether learning the multiplication table, or teaching ourselves the guitar, or getting a degree, or donating to charity, or raising a family, have made a sizable impact on the world and on the trajectory of the human race.

And yet…

The frustration of our goals is as familiar to us as the most intimate lover. The slow and grisly death of our dreams tolls a funereal bell whenever our alarm clock rouses us from sleep. We regard our youth as a catalogue of mistakes and waste, exiting it into maturity with little besides disillusionment and regret. We’ve always been told, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” We have – or once had – the will, but we’ve clearly lost the way. What did we do wrong? The glow of our ambitions is rivaled by the enormity of our failure to attain them. We’re stuck, going nowhere, like those poor birds in the windstorm.

The birds fail to fly to their destination, but why? Is it for lack of trying? Is it some innate disability that hinders their flight? Are they just lazy? No! – their environment prevents them from taking off. Circumstances hammer nails into the coffin of their goals. They do their best and fail utterly because of forces beyond their control.

And this state is where most of us dwell, but we pass false judgment upon ourselves because we do not consider the buffeting all around us that prevents us from self-realization. How can any human person be divorced from the social, historical, and biological forces which absolutely exceed our power and that shape us and our destiny? We find ourselves out of the swim of life; but do we control the current? The band is always playing in another street; but do we direct the conductor? The sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust; do we control the weather?

If, in examining our lives, we find that we fall short of where our parents were at our age or where some of our peers are today, instead of getting depressed and thinking ourselves failures, we might remember that so far in this century, there have been two global recessions, expensive wars, and a pandemic that have rendered the prospects of prosperity and social mobility considerably more meager. We cannot escape economics. Our looks are fading, our hair is falling out, and our waist size is ballooning; the bloom of youth has withered, but this is merely the unavoidable outcome of getting older. We cannot escape aging. For a great many of us, our ambitions are hindered by the obstacles placed before us on account of our racial and ethnic identities, by our sex, our disabilities, or because our speech and clothes give away that we come from poverty. But we did not set the standards by which those more privileged shall judge and treat those less fortunate, nor do we in any way merit such injustice. We cannot escape society. Our hopes are hindered and our days are fraught with the constant torments of anxiety and depression, the causes of which are ever eluding us, but these afflictions are common to the human mind, often with origins that have nothing to do with anything external but are instead the product of an imperfectly evolved human brain. We cannot escape psychology.

We do not live in a fair world; neither Nature nor human society seems ordered to provide for our happiness. Any study of the subject shows that history is a tragedy. Those who push themselves towards excellence of one kind or another not only often fall on their faces in their pursuits but may never realize success at all in their whole lives. Many of us have been given a raw deal, and neither competence nor determination are by any means a guarantee of a happy, productive life. This is what the author of Ecclesiastes (traditionally thought to be King Solomon) speaks of when he writes of the race not being to the swift nor the battle to the strong, etc. Talent and resolve are most definitely virtues, but there is no promise that we will get want we want or even what we deserve if we apply them. Moreover, we cannot be free of our place in history, nor can we pretend that our or our neighbors’ circumstances are entirely intelligible or the result of free choice. We are caught in the game of life whose inscrutable rules leave us in a fog of confusion and whose odds are rarely in our favor, unable to leave the table until we’re ejected without warning or consent. These sad facts are as inexorable today as they were in the Bronze Age when this poetic observation was first set down by that wise king.

Sad facts, yes, but in pointing them out, I do not mean to be melancholic or despairing, quite the opposite. The hope is that the discovery of this truth will liberate one from the intolerable burdens of invalid guilt and blame. If things are going wrong in our lives, if we feel that we’re not measuring up, if we fail to achieve our goals, then perhaps we are doing our best with what we’re given, but we may be also slamming our heads into the ceilings of history, society, and biology, unable to ascend any further. We are “snared in an evil time” that pulls most of us downward into a lesser status quo, allowing only a few to rise further. If we can develop a better sense of the times we find ourselves in, we will be able to more truly gauge our accomplishments in life and could possibly find different and more effective routes out of our unpleasant circumstances. A lot of people hardly know themselves; given that, just how many of us really know what we’re up against?

We must first disenthrall ourselves from fantastical narratives of human success that have no relation except to a tiny elite. We have not failed to realize ourselves because we are not at the level of Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, John D. Rockefeller, or Julius Caesar or any of the other celebrities, tycoons, conquerors, or world-shifters that history sordidly offers us for our misguided envy. These types, though they have seized the world, are often horrible, deeply insecure, and unhappy people. No treasure chest of fame or wealth can be converted into a grain of contentment. To be at that level of accomplishment is to be ever on your guard, to be never at peace, suspecting everyone. And even all that aside, why should the mightiest success, ever beyond the grasp of the everyman, be a cause of despair or self-reproach for the same? How many of us have encountered the happiest of folks who merely wish to and do in fact live a simple life? How many saints, of every religion, draw their holy ecstasy from a lifetime of service to others? 

We must search out what our needs truly are, separate from our sometime exaggerated wants. We must have our own selves figured out, knowing the measurements of both our strengths and limits, but also be cognizant of our environment, a paradigm far more powerful than our talents and will. Only then can we properly size ourselves up and know how far we’ve come or where were going; only then can we begin to find our way in the universe.