What Then are We Fighting, and Why

Lately, we have heard a lot talk of the metaphor "Life is War".

I read recently a quote from Joseph Conrad in which he speaks of our "beclouded and tempestuous existence".

Some mornings, during the time between sleeping and waking, these sort of just-below-consciousness thoughts occur to me; yesterday's was "our lives consist of thousands of quiet revolutions". Again, life is a battle, a revolt against something...

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."

What, then, if we concede that life is war, are we waging war against? We are warring against ourselves—fighting not to be the center of our worlds; fighting others that we may find a way to love them; fighting death—we have to remind ourselves that what we know here are not the most beautiful things; fighting our perversions—we are afraid of who we can be if we allow ourselves; fighting our anonymity—God I will do anything for you just don't ask me to be no one...

And why, why do we fight? Why do we engage in these daily upheavals? Because we know the the world is not as it should be and we are restless for it to be right.