Elf Sternberg

It's not that we aspire to magnificence, I think. It's that we don't know how to deal with a normal sense of failure and so we externalize it. NO spouse (job, money) will ever be enough to fill that hole if you don't figure out how to stand on the side, say "oh..the hole" and move along.

I have watched person after person take what I suspect is a fairly normal developmental stage of "oh shit..my life is half over..and I'm still not sure I'm doing it right!" and respond by throwing away previously functional marriages, careers, etc. hoping to find someTHING that can fill the void.

I suspect the void is a developmental stage like teens being total idiots and that it's not possible to avoid it completely. Unfortunately most of us have no context for "oh..the void..that's pretty normal, just don't stare so long you fall in."

How we respond to it is probably cultural, and American's have no context for "oh...I feel insufficient...but that's actually normal and ok!"