A
man once said, "Life's a bitch, and then you die." Another man said, "Do not go gentle into that good night". A third man said, "The things that make us happy make us wise."
Bad to worse.
We are, nearly all of us, born into a world of labor. Some labor seems designed to wear us down; other labor rejuvenates us; still other labor seems utterly pointless; further labor seems to deliberately work evil. Our world is not kind to the second kind of labor, but its fellows are flourishing.
I have spoken of joyful rest, but there are many kinds of rest, as there are many kinds of labor. There is rest that clears the mind and readies the soul for further action; there is rest that dulls and numbs, and does not want to let us go; there is rest that we feel owed, and rest we feel we are stealing. There is sleep.
How did we come to a place where we find that the point of life is to be entertained? Entertainment is certainly good. To say that the entire apparatus of life exists for the sake of entertainment of the conscious mind (which often disappears during the act of being entertained) is surely madness; but how people in the America of the year of our Lord 2023 find it hard to think of anything other than entertainment as the joyful rest that awaits them; the fruit of their labors?
A man was walking on the road, and finding himself frequently out of breath, decided to rest every ten minutes, so that he would not exert himself. He was passed by a hale man with long strides, who encouraged him to walk longer, so that in time, he would strengthen and not need to rest so often. The first man snapped that he had earned his rest, and that he didn't want his whole life to consist solely of the terrible work of walking, which he found unpleasant. The hale man, for whom walking had become quite pleasurable, shrugged and moved on.
It is very difficult to get a place where expending energy comes easily. It is, however, an extraordinarily rewarding place to be. It is better to be healthy than sick, and it is better to choose than to put off making a decision. Never forget where we're all going.