I think he meant to include women as well. Are we all leading lives of quiet desperation; trying to muddle through as best we can?
2006-11-26 08:17:10 · 10 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
It sure feels that way sometimes. I think I do agree with Thoreau. I was just skimming through the book of Ecclesiastes and Solomon seems to agree - he was after all, the wisest man who ever lived.
"I applied my mind to know wisdom....No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it." (Eccl. 8)
Solomon tried it all and in the end concluded that it is all just endless striving. His closing remark: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man......."
That sounds cynical as someone here pointed out but I think we fill our lives with noise. Many people are quietly desperate but they never hear their own souls crying out for answers. How can we not be desperate? We were created for so much more than this world offers. We weren't meant to know evil, to experience suffering, pain and death. Something is wrong with this world and in our deepest self we know it.
Solomon said that even when we try to do everything God's way, we don't know what awaits us in this life. Heaven is in the future and the tough part is living here day after day. That's what I find so difficult sometimes. It was a rude awakening to come to the realization that there is nothing I can do to guarantee only "good" things in my life. Last week 4 teenagers were killed in a school bus accident in my town. How many lives were changed forever in the split second it took for that bus to hit the overpass barrier?
I am not a morbid, despondent person. I live with joy because whatever happens I know that I belong to God. But this life is really crappy sometimes. When I start feeling the fear that comes from knowing I can't control what will happen tomorrow or one minute from now, I do what Solomon suggested: put my hope in God, revere him as my Lord and seek to follow Him as best I can.
I do feel a sense of purpose, and I believe that my life makes a difference when I am faithful to God. But there is still so much I don't know or understand, and from time to time, it feels a bit overwhelming.
Don't you think, Gorky, this comes with age? I used to think I really had things figured out. Now every day I understand more and more just how much I don't know.
Paradox has become the concept I hang my hat on.
2006-11-26 16:40:52 · answer #1 · answered by Anne Teak 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Despair is always quiet, there's no theatric way or public announcement that would count as the same-- you are then coming to cope with it in some way, and negating it in the process.
Yes, most people despair-- fleeing from what's at stake.
Is this really a great insight or just a better quote to replace another? I see no victories here.
2006-11-26 16:35:44 · answer #2 · answered by -.- 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
BS. There are plenty of people living lives of purpose and I do not mean that in the religious sense. Thoreau, aside from what else he was, was a cynic. You know what a cynic is, don't you? " A cynic is a person that knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing ".
2006-11-26 19:22:00 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 2⤋
Yes,I agree with this statement.Everyone seems to want more then they have,and are never satisfied with their lives.People will work themselves into the grave for meaningless materialism.Such as High-Definition T.V.'s,X-Box 360, cell phones,I-pods,a $300,000 house for two,and of course a Cadillac escalade SUV,etc.We are all in massive credit card debt,yet we don't like to talk about it ,do we?
2006-11-26 17:48:08 · answer #4 · answered by alchemy 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Pretty much. Tangentially, Mark Twain said "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody."
Twain was also reputed to have said that no life is successful in the deepest heart of the person living it.
2006-11-26 22:40:45 · answer #5 · answered by Ace Librarian 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋
yes i do believe they do all three of my husbands
show signs of this maybe i pick desperate men
2006-11-26 16:45:22 · answer #6 · answered by A Yellow Rose 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Definitely and he was a bit of a chauvinist.
2006-11-26 16:20:09 · answer #7 · answered by Sophist 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Probably true. Sad, but true.
2006-11-26 16:19:55 · answer #8 · answered by BB 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think he was just projecting.
2006-11-26 16:21:33 · answer #9 · answered by buzzfeedbrenny 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Probably true.
2006-11-26 16:25:47 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋