Bipolar Diagnoses the Human Condition (Nothing More) -- A Final Inquiry

I reflect once again on Romans 7.

Paul's conflict in trying to keep the law is the same conflict which many religious people fight in their lives. The more devout and religious a person becomes, the greater the bondage that they will face in their lives.

AA makes this conflict worse. Psychiatry, based on the progressive impulse of human perfectibility, diagnoses a conflict which is inherent in human nature.

From Alexander Pope's "Essay on Man":

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.

The modern temper has caused man to make himself God, with the inevitable internal conflicts of man wracking his attempts at stability and peace.

Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

Even Pope's appraisal suffers because of a poor recognition of  God as the first and the last of all things. For Pope to claim that man is "sole judge of truth" is either an unconscionable blasphemy, or a tongue-and-cheek remark blasting the arrogant folly of man as "Great lord of all things". Choosing the latter interpretation

"Chaos of though and passion, all confused" describes people who are diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and so in effect, every man will find himself sucked into the maelstrom of "self" if he is left to his own devices

"The glory, jest, and riddle of the world." The conjunction of these three descriptions should compel any man to accept that the world does not revolve around him, let alone start or end with him. In this one neat conceit, Pope puts to death the arrogant humanism of his time and the haughty and bereft modernism of today. Man cannot be the final explanation of anything, since he remains a riddle, with the answer forever lying outside of him. If he is a  "jest", Someone else must have told the joke. For anyone to claim glory, someone must be shining from outside of him to give this glory, or else there would be no glory to behold in the first place.

The conflicts within man also define man's state in a fallen world, and his need for a savior. "Bipolar disorder" describes every person, and for the most ends up on people who have refused to accept, or who have been taught to ignore, that they cannot find their truth and peace within themselves.