Spirit of the living God shape our minds, open our hearts, and strengthen our souls through the examination of the words of Teacher. Amen.

It is a terrible thing to look at scripture and think “Wow, this guy is having a bad day, month or something, because this is depressing!” So I stopped, prayed, and read it again.

This time there was something else present within the text, but was difficult to see. It was as if there is something within these words, but they are easily overshadowed by the harsh words of “meaningless”.

What I saw was that with all human effort to grow, improve, develop and mature as cultures, societies, and human beings there is a limit set in place. If what the “Teacher” observed is true then all human efforts to create perfection in ourselves and society will fall short of the goal and never fully be achieved.

Before we slip into an attitude of “why should we try?”, the teacher quickly adds that he applied himself to madness and folly as well and found that to be pointless as well.

So we can not perfect ourselves or society, nor will we find anything of value in giving up and accepting an attitude of defeat drenched with excess.

Can we accept this as truth? Are we limited? If so, why do we keep trying?