Article

Creed

Digital

14 August 2025

4 min read

ChatGPT’s answers on human desire left something to be desired

So we had a little conversation

Rick Hansen

Rick writes and speaks on leadership, transformation, and culture.

OpenAI.

I recently posed a question to ChatGPT.

What do people truly desire? In this unique time in history, what does the soul of humanity yearn for? What are humanity's deepest longings?

The AI's initial response was not unusual or surprising. It was actually rather “meh.” It offered a familiar list of aspirations that could have been answered if I posed the question to a moderately intelligent crowded room:

Love, connection, purpose, meaning, authenticity, freedom, peace, contentment, truth, understanding, hope, transcendence, joy, and wonder.

It continued saying, Ultimately, the human soul's profound quest is for a deep harmony among love, purpose, authenticity, peace, truth, hope, and joy—an integrated, meaningful existence that resonates with our intended nature.

I pressed in,

That is good but it is a long list of many things. Of all of those things you listed above, can you narrow it down to ONE thing, ONE single thing people want from life?

Interestingly and surprisingly it said,

Ultimately, the one thing that the human soul longs for most deeply is: To be fully known and truly loved. All other desires like purpose, authenticity, peace, truth, hope, joy all stem from or lead back to this core need. Being fully known and truly loved means someone sees every part of who we are, with all our imperfections, fears, and dreams, and yet embraces us completely. It's the deepest validation, belonging, and security we can ever experience, satisfying the profoundest longing of the human heart.

I had to step back as I realized what I just read and how I got there. It was a moment of irony. Could it be that AI - one of the most innovative discoveries of our lifetime - identified one of the greatest and most rudimentary dilemmas of humanity? A machine, it appeared, had articulated why we find ourselves at such a cultural moment of unparalleled innovation along with a growing sense of human despair.

We are at a unique point in history, a "cultural moment—a bizarre time of juxtaposition," as articulated by John Mark Comer on his podcast. It’s era defined by the convergence of seemingly disparate events and marked by a time of profound contrast.

Historic levels of digital connectivity parallel a rise of disconnection, loneliness, and despair.

A new cultural fluidity of evolving gender identities and flexible social norms stir strong backlashes over historic claims of rights and norms.

I understand, for some, this "moment" is instead something much less dire. It is simply a moment where life unfolds and continues as it always has. However, what if this moment signifies more than just a fleeting series of advancing and contrasting events?

Why, despite all this progress and innovation, does humanity not seem to be in a better state? Why does it all still feel so woefully empty?

What if this reality presents us with a responsibility to delve into these contrasting events, prompting us to ask a new and perhaps deeper question?

Victor Frankl in his bestselling book Man’s Search For Meaning cited two revealing studies that - not surprisingly - align with ChatGPT. One was a public poll in France that showed 89 percent of the people polled admitted that man needs something to live for, a purpose greater than themselves. A second study he cited of 7,948 students at 48 colleges by John Hopkins University revealed nearly the same. They were asked what they considered “very important”, 16 percent checked “making a lot of money”; 78 percent said their goal was “finding a purpose and meaning to my life.”

What if our constant pursuit of innovation and progress, rather than inspiring wonder and creating soulful connection, is actually separating us from an unknown longing to be truly known and truly loved?

For many, this swift, intense interplay of progress and regress is seen as an inevitable result of our human evolution. In practice, it is the only way true discovery and radical breakthroughs can happen. However, it's clear that our current cultural challenges won’t be answered by this ongoing experiment. More progress isn’t the answer.

What if, in our super modern world where hope often feels out of reach and despair is common, an ancient book and a profound idea can shed light on what ChatGPT and Victor Frankl are getting at? The Bible consistently talks about God's desire for a relationship with us, a longing to be known and loved so that he can in turn know and love us.

Our relentless pursuit of constant change and true innovation may well reflect a profound, yet undiscovered inner yearning: a mirror of the intended two-way connection between God and people. Perhaps the intensity with which we chase external goals of development and discovery stems from our inability to resolve an inherent, unspoken dilemma within humanity.

Could the Bible, in a world shaped by AI, force us to confront and even understand the complexities of the world and our place in it? Could God use AI - a hyper advanced technological tool - to draw our attention to Him and reveal to us the ancient truth of what we truly yearn for? Is it, as ChatGPT quickly summarized, really that simple?

Ultimately, the one thing that the human soul longs for most deeply is: To be fully known and truly loved.

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Article

Creed

Psychology

9 April 2025

4 min read

Worry: bug or feature of our lives?

The ancient root of common or garden worrying.

Andy Hood

Andy is a vicar-in-training in Durham.

A woman rubs her face in worry, while siting at a screen.

Vasilis Caravitis on Unsplash.

Climate change, smartphones, a loss of social cohesion: these are just some of the potential culprits for an oft-discussed, much worried about, anxiety epidemic. But what if our worries can’t be fully explained by any particular feature of the modern age? What if worry is in fact an ancient problem that afflicted the first century no less than the twenty-first? What would that mean for how we should respond?

I’m not a psychologist, or a social scientist, but I am a common or garden worrier. And worry worms its way into my life through the gap between responsibility and control.

I first encountered this at work. As someone who organised events, I felt responsible (and would be held responsible) for how many people signed up. But I soon came to the painful realisation that I didn’t control how many people signed up. I had responsibility but not control - and worry wormed its way in through that gap. And that didn’t seem fair to me - it seemed like a “bug” that should be fixed. Maybe my bosses just needed to relax a bit. That way my responsibility would shrink to match my control. Or maybe I needed better comms, better marketing - some way of making sure people came. That way my control would expand to match my responsibility. Either way, the gap between responsibility and control should be eliminated somehow.

And then I had kids - three of them. As a dad I am responsible for my children. But I am not in control of them - sometimes I can barely get them to eat their tea. And so worry worms its way in - through that gap between responsibility and control. But I began to realise that when it comes to my kids, I just can’t close the gap and I shouldn’t even try. To abdicate responsibility or to seek control are just two different flavours of failure. The gap between them isn’t a bug in the code of life, it’s a feature. It’s part of being human, and so human flourishing means learning to live well with, even in, that gap. But how?

In the earliest record we have of Christians trying to explain themselves, a book of the Bible called (confusingly) Acts, we follow Paul, convert to Christianity, to Athens, the cultural capital of the ancient world. And there he meets people different from us in almost every way… except that like us they are worriers. And they are worried because they feel responsible for something they can’t control. Paul finds an altar with this inscription “to an unknown god”. What makes people erect an altar to an unknown god? The worry that worms its way in between responsibility and control. We’re not sure if we know about all the gods - we’re not in control. But that god we don’t know about might hold us responsible. So let’s try to close the gap by erecting an altar to a god we don’t even know.

Paul offers a better solution - to them and to us. He’s invited to give a speech to the leaders figures of Athens, but he doesn’t present his audience with a more sophisticated technique for closing the gap between responsibility and control. Rather, he introduces them to his God, to the truth that allows us to flourish in that gap. This God, Paul says, marks out the appointed times and places of all people: that is, he is in control of all things. This God, Paul says, wants everyone to seek him and find him: that is, he wants the best for all people. This God, Paul says, doesn’t need anything from us: that is, our responsibility is his invitation to be part of what he’s doing in the world. Know this God, trust this God, Paul says, and you can see the gap between responsibility and control as a feature of life and not a bug. You can flourish in and not worry about the gap.

But how does that work in the midst of tea-time tantrums and the day-to-day worries of life? Well for me, on a good day, it works a bit like this. When I’m confronted with the reality of quite how much is beyond my control, I’m not faced with chaos. I’m just faced with the fact that I’m not God, but God is - and nothing is beyond his control. And the God who is in control when I’m not loves my kids more than I do, better than I do. And he doesn’t need me. He’s not delegated responsibility for my kids to me because he’s too busy to look after them himself. I’ve been given the responsibility of being their dad so I get to share in the joy of watching them grow into all they were made to be. The gap is still there - I’m really responsible and I’m really not in control. But maybe I’m ok with that.

There may well be certain features of the modern age that heighten our anxiety. But the people of first century Athens didn’t have smartphones or face climate change and they still worried. Because they felt responsible for something they didn’t control, just like we do. It’s an ancient problem, a feature not just of our culture, but of being human. And what if an ancient problem needs an ancient solution?

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Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.
If you enjoy Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.
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