The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation?

Question

This is a quote from Henry Thoreau. Do you think it's true?

Answer 1

Desperation, like joy, fear, excitement, pain, etc. is a part of life. It is just as true to say people lead lives of quiet joy as of quiet desperation. Life is far too complex to be described by a single adjectival statement, no matter how great the thinker or philosopher who makes the statement. Life is not one thing or another. Life, in fact, is not a THING at all. It is indefinable and unclassifiable. People, especially thinkers, are tempted to find patterns. And, indeed, some patterns do exist. But to define life according to one pattern is like defining music itself by listening only to one type of music.

Answer 2

Yes its true. For most people, our lives are planned for us before we are born. We go to school for twenty years just so that we can work at jobs that we mostly don't understand. We are utterly dependent on technology that we mostly don't understand. When we try to do something unusual, 'the computer won't let us'

We are hyper-competitive and our egos are hyper-sensitive without knowing why. (one commute on a rainy Friday afternoon after an accident should be enough to prove that point at least)

We have everything that we could possibly need and yet we are desperately in search of more. We are drowning in material goods and yet most people just assume that they don't earn enough without ever giving any thought to what wealth actually means.

Each of us assumes that there is something wrong with us because others seem to be doing well so we better hide our warts and pretend to be doing well too.

We're all hiding in a dark little cave, lit up by that flickering cathode ray tube, hoping that the scary world won't descend upon us. We're sitting here on our worn out couches gripping that baseball bat over bulging stomachs, scared, waiting to bash the head in of the first person who comes along wanting to show us the passage up to the light.

Answer 3

Pink Floyd - Time Lyrics
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill
today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's
sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled
lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to
say

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

Oooh, Katlin, I hate it when people just copy and paste something they found via a search engine!
I like this quote, though, and yes I think its true if a little melodramatic. I think the majority of people in Western society living in the suburbs have a lot of frustrations which they push to the back of their minds. Sitting in traffic jams, doing pointless unforfilling jobs, using leisure time to consume goods they don't need, being treated contemptuously by Politicians that are supposed to represent them.
That all sounds pretty desperate to me!

Answer 6

"The mass of men 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.

"When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear."

Answer 7

I like this quote...it is stirring & also true. Why ? Cos all of us are programmed to mask our true feelings & act as if everything is fine even if we are crying for help inside.
I think the world would be a different place if this quote was not true
Thank u shevek for the Pink Floyd lyrics.

Answer 8

Not in 2006. The masses of modern urban Americans lead lives of NOISY desperation, in my opinion.

Answer 9

Most men of found some level of contentment in their daily lives and families or in their religion. Few are desperate. Some try to fill the void with possessions, those are the most desperate and you see them often but they are not predominant.

Answer 10

of course it is, but it has at least been mitigated by mind numbing television, so the sound of the desperation has been lowered from quiet to merely the occasional bleat of the lost sheep, pretty soon we wont even hear it at all.....then weve truly lost.