People will often enter into the compulsive pursuit of ego gratification and things to identify with in order to fill the hole they feel within. So they strive after possessions, money, success, power, recognition, or a special relationship, basically so that they can feel better about themselves and feel more complete. But even when they attain all these things, they soon find that the hole is still there, that it is bottomless. Then they are really in trouble because they cannot delude themselves anymore. Well, they can and do, but it gets more difficult.

Eckhart Tolle

Many years ago, when I first started getting swept up into hours of chat room discussions and scintillating but unhealthy use of my precious spare time, and when the World Wide Web was relatively new, I found myself in danger of falling into the empty the pit of ego, that barrier to self realization and inner strength, looking deep into myself for flickering moments of time, startled at what I had become.

I cast aside with alacrity, the more noble pursuits of the mind and intellect such as reading books and studying photography, for the rather addictive pursuit of imagined ideal friends, relationships, vacuous fun and pleasurable, hopeful conversations with a wide variety of total strangers. Some of it was so rewarding to my dopamine centers that I compulsively kept at these trivial, for the most part, cyber and virtual pursuits. I had never before done anything like it.

For half a dozen years I was lost in this online-only world of deepest vacuity, clicking the chat boxes compulsively like one would play slot machines. It all became a drug of sorts. It was always, “There’s got to be a big payoff at some point in some person or thing that would make my fantasies, thoughts and imaginings come true. Of course it never happened.

At the beginnning of 2010, I quit the chat room addiction cold turkey, like I had quit smoking cold turkey 28 years prior. Both times there were strange, disturbing and uncanny events or happenstances that enabled me to do this. Prior to quitting, people I had become intensely interested in repeatedly vanished, or were actually somebody else. I was often disillusioned and disappointed, and disgusted with myself, even as I became more hooked on chatting, all with the beleaguered, long-running hope I would find my idealized version of a life partner, friend, or more.

The Internet does that. The sky’s the limit. But as I said, people are sometimes not what they appear to be. Pinning my hopes on others for the temporary excitement and happiness of the novel and new, inevitably leads to terrible disillusionment and loss. I am discerning and a good judge of the character and motivations of others, and yet I am so very human and capable of error. There are things I want, and my heart leaps out of my mind and intellect

I look back with regret and wistfulness 20 years ago to all those benign, enlightening, time-consuming, but ultimately empty, even toxic, online conversations, so one-sided they more often than ended up being me haplessly interviewing bored people. There were notable exceptions to this, often enough to keep me hooked on the chase. But all of those I developed online relationships of sorts, eventually disappeared, without exception, into the ether of cyberspace. Some went crushingly haywire and put me in danger actually. Fortunately my innate caution and trepidation prevented me from succumbing to the demands and persistence of some individuals who I now realize were quite disturbed. The Internet is full of these kinds of people, but fortunately for me I had many more interesting and good conversations and connections than bad ones.

I realize how different I am today, but also how I cannot imagine committing the same embarrassing and humiliating mistakes of judgment that occurred those many years ago. Or would I? I think and hope I would not.

I learned much from those almost inevitable and naive experiences with a new and unknown technology. Introverted, I became extroverted, but only online where one failure in online relationships led to another, and on and on. But now in old age and retirement, I’ve long since left behind those Gold Rush early days when the Internet was intoxicatingly novel and exciting, especially for a solitary and lifelong introvert such as myself.

Paradoxically, the chat years did save me from the depths of loneliness and depression to which I was always susceptible. It rapidly changed my life in so many ways. Now, I am as habitual a user of my phone as I was my desktop and laptops years ago, but in vastly more interesting and valuable ways.

Guilt is past. I have settled thankfully into a certain level of wisdom and maturity. I have a much much better grasp of the deeply held convictions and values of close friends in “real life” who were a big part of my life in the decades before the Internet came along and changed all of our lives, young and old, in so many ways.

I soon will turn 74. I have turned failure and suffering into wisdom. Additionally, I have come into fuller possession of eternal truths: love, forgiveness, the transcendent nature of beauty, friendship, integrity, loyalty, compassion, and selflessness. It took a very long struggle with myself and the fateful circumstances of life, including illnesses and losses of a personal nature, to discover and more fully understand the eternal verities .

Yet, despite all of this personal growth through suffering and failure, why is it that there always seems to be something missing, even when I don’t think much about it because life is more or less on an even keel? I find myself going about customary activities and routines with astonishing familiarity and ease. I do think less and less about what is, or might be missing because I have so many blessings to be thankful for. All of a sudden, I am thanking God for this every day, grateful for my passions of photography and writing, for the good friends I have, even as I am more keenly aware that my vast interests and questions in every aspect of this life, can never be completely satisfied or answered.

I may live alone, I may not have any children or grandchildren to comfort me in old age, I may be surrounded by too many unread books and the clutter of an excess of delightful objects and things that bring only momentary happiness, but I continue learning, enjoying life and Nature, and using my intellect in meaningful ways. I may be hooked on YouTube, but I love it and the stimulating, fascinating people I encounter there. I am never bored or lacking for something to do.

The world may be in turmoil and misery. The news is awful beyond belief, but the status quo somehow prevails in our individual, unthreatened lives which flow along on their courses, devoid of sea changes and abrupt endings and beginnings. This is how we preserve our sanity in a world gone mad, or soon to be. In fact, I sometimes tell people, “The status quo is the most powerful force in our lives.” By this I mean we constantly seek equilibrium and a steady state in our day-to-day existences, and if anything interrupts that state of both mind and being, we fiercely fight back to restore the status quo

All of us in some way look into the pit of ego again and again, but hopefully, instead of marching headlong into that pit, which is always bottomless, we withdraw into ourselves, meditate in whatever way we can, renew ourselves with spiritual reading, and embrace new opportunities to delve deeply into the mysteries of life. I find that I am not dwelling nearly as much, or at all now in this new year, with past failures and setbacks with jobs, friends and acquaintances, former co-workers, and even once closest friends.

When I was a young man without roots and a stable job and place to live, I was often tormented by indecision, especially during my episodes of severe depression. The ego would try to dominate me. But now in old age, I don’t’ have to be constantly worried about my job or finding a career. That’s all in the past. There is no compelling need to rush about in pursuit of friends and social outlets or activities. If it happens, it happens. I go with the flow of life instead of swimming against the currents. I have learned, and can forewarn myself now, that the ego, when it becomes the self-absorbed center of my life, can become that dangerous current, if I allow it to be.

I’m getting ready to get up and have breakfast. The comforting routine of orange juice, oatmeal, fruit, coffee and toast will jump start my day. I have another chance to live fully in the present, all I’ve ever needed to find my way again and again. The past is always present, but it doesn’t shackle my moods and thoughts as it once did. Today is, after all, the first day of the rest of my life.