ThirstyFish

Dissatisfaction. It is the defining emotion of the times. Almost everyone is dissatisfied. But not all dissatisfaction is the same. Some have good reasons to be discontent. Most don't.

You have a decent job. You're in reasonably good health. You have a couple of close friends, a family. There should be no reason for you to experience dissatisfaction, but you can not quite get over the sentiment that things don't feel exactly right. You live in a plastic world. The natural world seems so distant. People around you are shallow; Lost in their cellphones and iPads, they are ignorant of each other and of the real-world. What you see on television is surreal. It seems like narcissists rule the stage. You try to endure the empathy deficit, but fail again and again. The Buddhist concept of dukkha doesn't quite apply to you. Positive thinking doesn't help, because the world around you is what it is: factitious.

There's no reason to beat yourself up. Your displeasure with the world is justified. I'd actually be worried if I was not seeing the modern world for what it is. Modern culture is increasingly spurious, increasingly detached from reality...