"12I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."
Ecclesiastes 1:12-18
What is true of nature (underlining the previous verses) is also true of human experience as we know it. And, on the original premise that this life is all there is to life - i.e. life under the sun - then no attempt to give it meaning will ever succeed, however bold, imaginative or comprehensive that attempt may be. Thus, first of all, the failure of wisdom is underlined in these verses. It is interesting and significant that the Preacher's starting point is with wisdom. He begins by seeking to make an enlightened survey of human life. Here is a man confronting the world as we know it, and he says, 'Wisdom is the answer, I will think things through'. And he brings a serious thinking mind to the problems of the world as he encounters it. Life is in fact a challenge, and for anyone worth his salt it is a challenge to be mastered. Hence this serious attempt at the outset. This is the important thing here. It is not a lack of seriousness or sincerity that is the trouble, with many, it is just that their standpoint is wrong - 'under the sun' you can find no meaning: you come up against a brick wall, finding problems for which you have no answer. You find crooked things that cannot be made straight, either by human wisdom or by anything else human. You find that the more deeply you think about the world and its mysteries and realise that nothing can be done about them, the more touched by grief you become.