Chasing Shadows: Understanding the Roots of Human Dissatisfaction?

In this post, we explore the nature of dissatisfaction and the human tendency to experience suffering—a theme central to Eastern philosophy for over 2,500 years. Drawing primarily from Buddhist thought, this article outlines how dissatisfaction pervades human existence and how we might begin to understand and engage with it differently. Rather than proposing a clear-cut solution, it invites readers to reflect more deeply on the illusions of self, permanence, and happiness.

Originally published in Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-161291109

Dissatisfaction or Suffering?

The nature of dissatisfaction and the possibility of liberation from it has been a consistent theme in Eastern philosophy. Central to this discourse are the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama—known as the Buddha—who lived in India over 2,500 years ago. According to Buddhist thought, our fundamental dissatisfaction stems from a mistaken belief in a concrete, separate self—an illusion that this “I” exists independently of the surrounding world.

The Buddha’s understanding of suffering is summed up in what are known as the Four Noble Truths:

1. Suffering is a natural part of life.
2. Suffering is caused by craving and attachment.
3. It is possible to end suffering.
4. There is a path that leads to the end of suffering. This path includes eight guiding principles based on honesty, awareness, and ethical living: right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration

The term the Buddha used for suffering is dukkha, a Pāli word often translated as “suffering,” though it also encompasses inner unease or stress. Even ancient Buddhist texts mention body image issues as a form of suffering. Feeling unattractive or unworthy has long been part of human dissatisfaction. In this view, suffering is caused by our own actions, desires, and failure to perceive the true nature of reality.

Dukkha can be categorised in three ways:

• Dukkha-dukkha: physical and emotional suffering due to aging, illness, birth, and death.
• Viparinama-dukkha: suffering of change, frustration that pleasant experiences don’t last.
• Sankhara-dukkha: existential dissatisfaction rooted in impermanence and change. we fear that life doesn’t offer us solid ground and that our very existence is questionable. It is the fear that life doesn’t offer us solid ground and that the very existence is questionable.

Philosopher and Zen teacher David R. Loy (2018) describes dissatisfaction as a kind of existential void, which cannot be fulfilled. He argues that we cannot address dissatisfaction without deconstructing the illusion of self. If dissatisfaction is inherent to our identity, then perhaps humans are, by nature, dissatisfied beings. Loy emphasises that fixing one area of life often just shifts our dissatisfaction elsewhere, without addressing its root.

In Christianity, dissatisfaction is often interpreted as the result of sin—original disobedience against God. If we are to overcome our dissatisfaction, we must theoretically resolve this ancient transgression, a task beyond our capabilities. In contrast, Buddhism encourages us to accept dissatisfaction as real and to embark on a path toward liberation.

Sense of Lack

Dissatisfaction is an emotion, but it can’t be dismissed nor suppressed. According to Loy, our real struggle is a suppressed fear that our sense of self is groundless and insecure. Trying to secure it, is like trying to catch your own shadow. We try to solve this issue, which is internal, through external material means. We try to fulfil the psychological internal void with external achievements, validation, power, money, romantic relationships, and consumer goods—but the illusion persists.

Loy calls this the lack project. It’s our effort to overcome an internal void through symbolic acts—writing books, painting, founding hospitals, or competitive hot dog eating (Joey ”Jaws” Chestnut ate 76 hot dogs in ten minutes in 2021). In contemporary times, social media amplifies these projects, as we craft idealised identities and seek validation through likes.

Buddhism offers a surprisingly simple practice in response: just sit still. Literally. Sitting meditation—sometimes anchored to the breath or other body sensations—invites us to observe thoughts and emotions as temporary occurring phenomena without clinging to them. Over time, these mental bubbles burst like soap bubbles. The goal isn’t to eliminate dissatisfaction, but to develop awareness of it and our fleeting sense of self.

Loy notes that when dissatisfaction has nowhere left to go—when it cannot project itself outward—it collapses inward. The illusion of self, which is always craving, dissolves. And with it, the need to satisfy that craving. Dissatisfaction often manifests as guilt: “There’s something wrong with me.” It encompasses the trauma of birth, illness, aging, and the fear of death. We feel bound to situations we dislike, estranged from what we love. Even in moments of peace, the mind fears this peace won’t last. Why does everything nice and beautiful have to end? As long as we feel incomplete, real life always seems just out of reach, never quite here.

The opposite of dukkha is sukha, a Sanskrit word meaning joy, pleasure, or ease. It’s often mistakenly believed to be the root of the word for sugar in many languages—like sukkar (Arabic), zucchero (Italian), and azúcar (Spanish). While the similarity is striking, the actual linguistic roots are more complex and likely stem from the Sanskrit word śarkarā, meaning “gravel” or “sugar crystals.” Ironically, sugar—once a symbol of sweetness and pleasure—played a central role in one of humanity’s darkest chapters: the transatlantic slave trade.

In 17th- and 18th-century London, coffeehouses became centres of political and philosophical dialogue, fuelled by coffee, tea, and cocoa—all bitter substances sweetened with sugar. The rising demand for sugar drove mass slavery, with millions of Africans kidnapped, sold, and forced to labor on plantations under brutal conditions. The true number of lives affected may never be known.

Human cruelty has recurred throughout history—extinction of species, oppression, murder, ecological destruction. Our dissatisfaction has driven both innovation and devastation. Climate change and environmental collapse are now results of centuries of viewing nature merely as a resource. This seemingly logical mindset, has triggered nonlinear feedback loops we can no longer control.

Nonlinear processes—such as ecological collapse—don’t follow neat cause-and-effect paths. Small triggers can lead to large consequences. Our ability to cultivate our experience of interdependence through meditation practice, may help us understand and respond to these challenges.

But who are we, really? What makes us “us”? Are we truly unique?

Consider the Ship of Theseus. If every plank in a ship is eventually replaced, is it still the same ship? If every cell in our body is replaced over time, are we still the same person?

Imagine a teleportation device on Mars. It scans your body and transmits the data to Earth, where a perfect copy is reconstructed. After successful teleportation, you can choose whether the original ”you” on Mars is destroyed. But which one is really you? The teleported copy on Earth or the original on Mars?

Are we just a fleeting arrangement of atoms that briefly feels like a “self”? Our cells are replenished with food and expelled through waste. If our sense of self is rooted in this ever-changing matter, then our uniqueness—and perhaps even our suffering—may be far more fragile than we think.

Conclusion

Dissatisfaction is a fundamental part of human life—rooted in illusion, fear, and longing. Whether viewed through the lens of ancient Buddhist philosophy or modern existential thought, the sense of lack cannot be fulfilled through materialism, achievement, or even reason alone. Instead, it calls for a deeper chance in our awareness of the self and its impermanence. As paradoxical as it may seem, liberation from dissatisfaction may lie not in solving it, but in understanding and integrating it into our way of being.

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Resources:

Loy, D. R. (2018). Lack & transcendence: The problem of death and life in psychotherapy, existentialism, and Buddhism. Second edition. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Walpola, R. (1967). What the Buddha taught. Bedford: Gordon Fraser.