Even if man's hunger and thirst and his sexual strivings are completely satisfied, 'he' is not satisfied. In contrast to the animal his most compelling problems are not solved then, they only begin. He strives for power or for love, or for destruction, he risks his life for religious, for political, for humanistic ideals, and these strivings are what constitutes and characterizes the peculiarity of human life. Contemporary man is prey to a recurrent sense of dissatisfaction. He is intermittently bored, frustrated and neurotic.
Life is only occasionally there to be simply lived.
In some traditional societies identity might readily be constructed out of the material of paramount reality. Individuals could display themselves by showing commitment to the arrangements and routines of everyday life. But contemporary consciousness is informed by a sense of reality as something which is not completely our own. We are able to reflect upon our life plans, are able to see them as relative by observing the existence of other dissimilar life plans. The abstractions of intellect and reasoning are important, but when they lose touch with feelings they open the way for in human and destructive acts.