are we strangers to ourselves?

so, i'm reading this book Prescription For Living, which i posted briefly about here and came across this fascinating concept about how as humans, we don't really know ourselves.  much of the human race is wandering around aimlessly, distracting ourselves with things and ideas and we deliberately divert, amuse, busy ourselves so that we don't have to come face to face with our real self. Ruhiyyah poses the question, "What makes him human and how should he function in relation to it?"  she states that we have forgotten how to be human.  a quote from the book goes on, "There never was a time in the world when people voiced more beautiful thoughts, had more wonderful schemes, than we have today.  But there was also never a time when life was held more cheaply, when every human being was in greater danger of a harrowing death or a miserable, insecure, barren existence, when all standards seemed to be more empty and useless."  wow!  this observation, about which she wrote 62 years ago, is certainly manifest today!  you can't get through the day without reading, hearing, watching some horrible demonstration of what Ruhiyyah has described.  she goes on to answer that there is a massive "maladjustment in the world", that we are not living in conformity with the laws that govern us as human beings.  we are "humanly undeveloped", "spiritually malnourished"...of course doing life is so hard, because we are going against what we're here for, we don't know ourselves, are strangers to our own God-given souls.  and this all makes sense given the concept that we are not just a body on earth, we are a unique and special, one of a kind soul.

tell me about it.  that is my greatest quest.  


so.  what do you think?  post in the comments below.  i'll write subsequent posts more about this and what i'm pondering while reading the rest of this book.