Lives of Quiet Desperation

When you are a child you think: "When I grow up, it'll all be different." As a young adult, you think: "In a few more years, I'll get it together." In your mid thirties - you are still hopeful: "When I get the raise, when I find true love, when X finally happens... it will all fall into place."

We always believe, that with just a little more time - a little more work, we are going to finally "Get it together." All we need is more time, all we need is more wisdom, we just got to stick to our diet and follow our exercise plan - and freedom will be right around the corner.

This is not to say that we cannot elevate our life through conscious endeavor, that we cannot change, transform, or grow. The problem is that we believe that change comes from someplace outside... that we will have what we seek when things change. Things do not change - we change. Furthermore, we tend to seek an illusion - something that not only cannot be had, but should not be sought - not, in any case, head on.

"Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing it is not fish they are after.”
Henry David Thoreau

What is it we are all looking for? A pain and trouble free life, an escape from suffering, to be different than what and who we are. We look at other people from a distance, and we somehow believe they do not suffer as we do, and if we simply wait long enough, we will enjoy the easy life they seem to be living. Of course, their lives aren't simple nor are they free from suffering - The reality of course is:

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation . . . . A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind."

"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
Henry David Thoreau

It could be those who seem to simply float through life are just better at the games and amusement.

If you seek only to avoid suffering, and to shelter yourslf from pain, then your life will be worthless. A life that is worth living is hard. Just as you cannot have a strong body without physical exerciseyou cannot have a strong spirit by living a life of ease. Dreaming is easy, but striving to achieve those dreams requires work, risk, passion - and an open heart. According to Thoreau, building castles in the air is what one should do, but after, you need to place the foundations under them....

I know many dreamers - it is the thing I think I love most about my current boyfriend. But I also watch him and I think he expects the foundations will build themselves. He speaks as if he will finish his thesis, and this will make him into a responsible person who wakes up in the morning. He talks of perhaps being 45 - and that he cant love me now, because there us a possibility that he will suddenly want a child of his own because he will be "grown up" enough.

It makes we want to shake him and yell - "You are 36. This is IT. Things won't change - only you can change. Be or don't be - but waiting is a waste of time....." We have the now... it is all God gives us! I would want to love him more, but his world is built in shifting sand, and I fear that if I love him too much things will fall on my head. Being in relationship with hm makes me a bit unstable, because his world seems to shift under my feet... while he changes not at all.

Then there is my friend - in our imaginary play world, she has dubbed herself "Agent Why / Why Not". She dreams, she's smart - but doubts seem to paralyze her. "Slow Down - its too fast! We don't know each other well enough! It might not work!"

And again, I want to shake her and yell - "Too fast? Our lives are half over! If not NOW, when?" and "Of course we don't know each other - none of us, not one of us - really truly ever knows another person. We build a life together over time, and as we build we grow, and we begin to understand" and "It may not work, its true - but we will never know unless we begin...."

I am like everyone else, in that I want to avoid suffering. I do not wish to be in pain. But to strive is to risk, to love another person opens your heart - and open hearts are innately vulnerable. Those I do not love cannot really hurt me, and risks I do not take have no chance of failing....

And there I am left - living a life of quiet desperation, relying on the amusements of mankind. Suffering all the same, yet never having achieved, loved, fought - nor ever having given myself a real reason to cry. And that, I think - is the real resignation, and where despair and hopelessness abide forever.

(ed. Special thanks to Henry David Thoreau - who helped me think today. )