One of the greatest revelations about reality is that we will never run out of problems. We will never run out of new things to solve and understand because solving a problem beautifully reveals more problems in its wake that we may dive into. Problems present themselves to us in many areas: physics, philosophy, relationships, work, cooking, driving, communication, and so on. The number of areas is so vast that if I were to continue listing them, I would eventually run out of memory on my computer, presenting me with yet another problem.
When we take the nature of problems seriously, we can see that the phrase “never enough” is quite literal. When I think about “never enough,” my mind is initially led to psychological concepts like addiction and various other indulgences. Addiction can stem partly from insecurity or low self-esteem, which is an internal problem that the addict attempts to solve externally. Now, of course, one could say, alright, boss up, be a man, and go on your way. There we go, problem solved. There will now certainly be some more beautiful problems ahead because you’re a big, strong man, free of ailment.
Though I’m hyperbolizing, shallow advice like this plagues psychological discourse, particularly around dating, because it is relatable to many people without being as taboo as addiction. I find much of the recent popular discourse around attachment styles to be a genre of this shallowness. TikTok gives you the diagnosis, you identify your problems with a label, and this makes you feel better. But identifying the pattern does not explain why it exists or solve the underlying problem. It’s only giving you a more sophisticated way of describing yourself without giving you a way to change. This is the fork in the road for everything that follows: “never enough” as endless repetition of the same problem, or “never enough” as persistent movement toward better ones.
Jung is a good starting point. In Jungian terms, insecurity can arise when we suppress or reject the parts of our personality that we do not like, which he calls the shadow. Constantly suppressing these parts of ourselves is draining and causes us to wear a mask everywhere we go. We then feel like impostors because the version of ourselves being accepted or rejected by others is not the whole person we are. In some sense, we are lying to ourselves and everyone else around us. What I find valuable about this is that it leaves the problem of finding ourselves open, because these darker parts of us are still within us. There is no rationality in learned helplessness or labeling our problems when we can start taking action to become better. We no longer have to tell people: “I’m X attachment style,” or “X happened to me when I was a kid, which is why I’m this way.” Our past may help explain how we became divided against ourselves, but it does not determine what we must be. The rejected parts can be confronted and integrated.
When you lack alignment with your self, internal problems begin to shift outward to the external. What’s commonly seen is this rejection of “things that make us feel bad”, and filterless embracing of “things that make us feel good”. Put plainly, this is hedonism. Drugs, indulgences, and validation are some of the things, though there are plenty more, that people use in their unconscious pursuit of hedonism. All are attempted solutions to the inner problem at hand. But because of their temporality, they offer no solution. More of the proverbial or literal drugs and good feelings will seem to be the answer, but none will ever be enough because each one is the same false solution being applied again. This may seem clichéd and obvious, but if it were, would drug and alcohol abuse be so commonplace? Would the porn industry be as large as it is? Would gambling be growing as much as it is? Would the divorce rate be as high as it is? Would obesity be as widespread as it is? I don’t think it is obvious at all.
When one becomes conscious of this misalignment, the problem is moved back to where it came from in the internal. This does not mean that “never enough” disappears. That is not possible. Integrating one part of ourselves may reveal another conflict, and correcting a bad idea about how we should live may reveal a deeper one beneath it. Moral perfection, despite the virtue in its pursuit, remains unattainable. There is no point at which we become completely whole and have no further errors to correct, whether in ourselves or any other domain.
Here, the two paths of “never enough” diverge entirely. In one, the same problem repeatedly demands the same inadequate solution, with insecurity or low self-esteem being met with indulgences and validation. In the other, solving one problem reveals a new and better problem that we were previously incapable of seeing. For example, someone struggling with their anger may try to suppress it because they think feeling it makes them cruel or unlovable. That anger could reappear indirectly as resentment, people-pleasing, or a need for validation. Through acceptance and integration of this part of themselves, they may come to see it as something like a capacity for healthy self-protection, ameliorating their resentment. A new problem may be revealed, though. That could be how to express the anger, set boundaries, and defend oneself in a way that is not destructive. This new problem could not have been foreseen if this person had kept denying their anger!
The unconscious addict experiences an endless repetition of the same dissatisfaction. The conscious knowledge creator experiences an endless progression toward new problems, but also the satisfaction that comes from actually solving old ones and making progress. Neither reaches a condition in which there is nothing left to want, question, or improve, but only one of them is improving their life. This difference relates to what David Deutsch calls explanatory universality. This means that we can understand anything that can possibly be explained so long as it is not prohibited by the laws of physics. This universality includes the negative end of the spectrum, though, as we are capable of infinite error too—which is the case of the addict and their repetition.
The nature of problems and explanatory universality therefore make the productive form of “never enough” possible. Every better explanation expands our reach, allowing us to recognize errors and possibilities that were previously invisible to us. The growth of knowledge, despite its beauty, will never fully lead us out of problems. It will only carry us from current problems to better problems, deeper ones, closer to the truth. Being a part of “never enough” is an unavoidable condition of life, but we choose where we’d like to fit ourselves into it. We do not choose whether problems will continue. We choose whether to keep applying the same false solution because it works temporarily or to create the knowledge that allows us to solve the problem and understand ourselves and the world ever more deeply.