Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

I remember where I was the first time I heard the music of Ireland’s greatest band: U2. It was 1985. Someone snuck a bootleg cassette of U2’s groundbreaking Under a Blood Red Sky into my Spanish lab. 

I didn’t know why the sky was blood red or why Sunday was bloody, but the guy singing seemed pretty pissed about it. Anthem rock. I was hooked.

Our Restless Search for Meaning

The song is an anthem to man’s inherent and restless search for meaning.

Perhaps it is our genetic connection to the cavemen or Adam & Eve ─ but we always seem to be searching for meaning in our own lives. 

The cavemen were constantly worried about killing their next beast. Or finding a larger cave for their wives-before the next snow. These things were important for survival. 

Then there’s the whole thing in the Garden of Eden. The trickery with the apples. A story for another time. 

Regardless, as a species, there’s an inherent restlessness and searching at our core. We are always looking for meaning and purpose in our lives.

Seeking more. Longing. 

It’s what Bono was singing about in I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (1987).

U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For Live From Milan

“I have kissed honey lips

Felt the healing in the fingertips

It burned like fire

This burning desire

I have spoke with the tongue of angels

I have held the hand of a devil

It was warm in the night

I was cold as a stone

But I still haven't found

What I'm looking for

But I still haven't found

What I'm looking for”

─ Bono, U2

The Mating

I think our lives are divided into two, nine-hole golf matches. We spend our elementary years chasing girls—with a worm on a stick. Then they start to smell good. We start to like raincoats. From there the real chase is on. Everything we do is to impress the fairer sex.

In the mating, most guys are just trying to find the unicorn on the universal hot-crazy matrix. And they’re trying not to look totally incompetent at work so they can go home and watch sports.

The front nine is all about “the mating”.

Once we find sturdy mate, life gets simpler at “the turn”. Like the cavemen, we find a nice cave. We get a sharp spear and a beast of burden.

The Mattering

On the back nine we can really get our game on. We might get married, maybe have some crumb snatchers. We buy a place, find a better job, have some kids, buy a bigger place. You get the point. Pretty standard formula. 
 

“I’m just trying to matter and live a good life and make work that means something to somebody.”

— Reese Witherspoon
 

On the back nine there can be trouble. Lots of trouble. Especially if there’s a young, scantily clad woman on the beverage cart.

On the back nine we start to look around. We start to measure. We start to compare. We start to wonder and worry. I think the cavemen did this too.

We start to question everything. Why does Atok have the biggest cave? Why did Krog get the biggest beast? And how did Thor get a third wife when he only has one eye left.

The Dead Cat Bounce

Life starts well, and ends well. But, the middle part can be rocky.

This is the finding of a recently released paper from economists David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick. 

Average life satisfaction slowly declines from early adulthood high until it takes a “dead cat bounce” in the early 50s.