"6 There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: 2 a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honour, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.3 If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not satisfied with life's good things, and he also has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. 4 For it comes in vanity and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name is covered.5 Moreover, it has not seen the sun or known anything, yet it finds rest rather than he. 6 Even though he should live a thousand years twice over, yet enjoyno good—do not all go to the one place?
7 All the toil of man is for his mouth, yet his appetite is not satisfied. 8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool? And what does the poor man have who knows how to conduct himself before the living? 9 Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the appetite: this also is vanity and a striving after wind.
10 Whatever has come to be has already been named, and it is known what man is, and that he is not able to dispute with one stronger than he. 11 The more words, the more vanity, and what is the advantage to man? 12 For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?"
Ecclesiastes 6:1-12
The thought expressed in 9 is an intriguing one. One of the things that the phrase 'the wandering of the desire' seems to suggest is that it is possible to 'day-dream' our lives away in wishful thinking and fantasy. But this does not merely make our lives feckless; it can also lead us into peril and danger. It has well been said that Eve took the forbidden fruit a hundred times in her imagination before she reached out her hand to take it, and if temptation and opportunity were ever to come together we would be in deep trouble. There is something else also. Was it R.L. Stevenson who said, 'It is better to travel hopefully than to arrive'? This may be true if the arriving falls flat. Have we ever noticed how in life, anticipation and retrospect always seem to be more attractive than reality? We plan our summer holiday, look forward to it for months, but so often the reality falls short of the expectation. Yet, looking back upon it, we think wistfully of the lovely time we had and long to recapture it. The reason for this perplexing paradox in our experience is that of course the present has a shadow upon it: shadows fall on brightest hours, and thorns remain, so that earth's bliss may be our guide, and not our chain. This is a great and very necessary lesson for us to learn, for it underlines for us the danger of setting too great store by any anticipated joy. The wandering of the desire, although it can be wonderfully fascinating, can be morally destructive and disintegrative, because it saps moral energy. What realism there is in the Preacher's words!