God Laughs when You Make Plans: A Bout of Introversion Pt. 2

I struggle to understand what unnameable something keeps our lives from unfolding the way we plan. What powerful opposition can repel our progress of moving towards the fulfillment of our hopes and dreams like we envision in the merriest of reveries. Is it the Fate clause found so emotionally in Tchaikovsky's symphonies as well as in the composer's private life? (Fate, that force which keeps us from being perfectly happy). Before you respond with the cliche rebuttals that normally accompany these types of inner observations, I'll have you know I'm already well versed in these. The problem is that I find them both terribly inadequate and banal. Clearly, there are reasons why life knocks us from our planned trajectory, and in many cases it turns out to be a blessing instead of a curse (this sometimes can only be seen in retrospect). But is this always the case? Is disappointment and disillusionment nothing more than Life watching our backs? Or is it that happiness is contraband in this world of ours? Does every square inch of the universe come encoded with instructions to cut us down the minute the "joy barometer" reaches a certain point? Clearly that's not the case (I think). But I am starting to notice a design quality to this condition. It's as if someone or something INTENTIONALLY made it this way.

My college psychology professor once stated that most of us walk the earth broken and unfulfilled. A reality first discussed by mystics that came centuries and centuries before he did.

I'm sure there are human beings out there, cynical and battle-weary, who look at a dream not as an idea of what to endeavor towards, but rather a symbol of something that will remain perpetually elusive. Are people like them mere misanthropes, or have they become aware of the facts of life?

Tom