July 4After Work
The mass of humanity lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city, you go into the desperate country and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau—Walden (1854)
Few people, truly believe they are living anything as dramatic as some version of “quiet desperation.”
No, today's version of this reading might substitute the words “quiet boredom” or “quiet reservation.”
The tough thing about this idea is that you might be paying the bills, keeping your house in order, and smiling with the ones you love, but you might also be numb to the pain you're experiencing somewhere deep and hidden.
Our quiet desperation reveals itself in our incessant need to find something that distracts us from the despair of boredom.
So how did we create all this boredom in a world brimming with possibility?
Is it possible you've achieved a level of comfort that somehow looks like the false mountaintop and you're reluctant to give up any ground?
Is it possible you've determined that this is pretty much as far as your talent, luck, and brains can take you?
Is it possible you've created a protective shield of bubble wrap around your mounting self-doubt? ...
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