Why it is normal to be miserable: the itch you are trying to scratch

The consolation prize you get, instead of a rich and fulfilling life

We all have it… unnoticed, unidentified, undistinguished, sneaking past your consciousawareness, the strings that make you a puppet on a string, robbing you of your life, using it for its own purposes… laughing at you. I can hear the laugh.

The racket. The insidious, ubiquitous racket.

It is a machine… and it is powered by an unfulfilled and unfillable desire, I call The Itch… the itch that cannot be scratched.

The desire for attention, for significance, for winning every transaction, for love, for filling your gaping hole inside.

No matter how much of what you get, it is never enough. It doesn’t scratch the itch. You are always unfulfilled, you are always needing more of isn’t really doing it for you.

In essence that is the deepest level of the machine we call racket.

Why it is called a racket? Because like all rackets, they are for extortion.

A protection racket works like this: someone shows up at your business and pretends to sell you fire insurance, or life insurance. You know that unless you “buy” the fire will come, the murder will come… from the mob the salesman represents. That is a racket. Extortion. Extorting money for nefarious reasons. Nefarious… meaning criminal reasons.

Now, back to our type of racket: You (and everyone around you) are an extortionist (a person who tries to obtain something through force or violence; a racketeer.) You extort strokes…

Strokes are a particular type of reaction that you can get and give… A smile, a pat on the back, a good morning, and “I love you”, an encouragement, an “atta boy”, or a frown, a sneer, a beating, a hit over the head. Positive strokes, negative strokes, given that humans are social animals, any stroke will do.