It is said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Do you agree with this? I certainly feel that way at times
There are many kinds of desperation, and many kinds of solutions.
1) There is the desperation of being overwhelmed by events and commitments: Politics, news, too many new apps and technologies and games to learn, too many people to see and too much to do. Quick answer: Turn off the computer, cancel on your commitments, throw out some of those hi-tech gadgets, and go for long walks in the woods. Prioritize and pare back until you find a good balance.
2) There is the desperation of being hemmed in by the world: You want to be an Fi free spirit, but the world puts you in a Te straightjacket. Or you want to be a rebel, but you're hemmed in by bluenoses with their political correctness and cancel culture. Or you want to be free to travel the world, but you're hemmed in by poverty or disability or old age. Quick answer: Maybe you're projecting a lot of that feeling. Try focusing on what you *can* do instead of what you *can't* do. Can't travel to Greece? Okay, but maybe you could take parachuting lessons or even attend a free contradance put on by the town social services office. Or go hit the gym and work on your fitness level. There are always alternatives that are more accessible. No one but the extremely disabled are so immobile that they can't find alternatives.
3) There is the desperation of the neurosis or the mid-life crisis: You're supposedly doing everything right, but you get slammed by mental health issues. Quick answer: Let your freak flag fly. You've ignored an important part of yourself and you need to explore it. Get some therapy and take off that self-imposed straitjacket. Easier said than done, I know. But you have to start somewhere.
4) There is the desperation of being stuck in bad relationships, bad families, bad friendships, bad jobs, etc. Quick answer: Pay attention to the lyrics of Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover."
And so on. Desperation comes largely from inside. It's like the old saying, something about all our problems arise because we don't know how to sit quietly in a chair and mind our own business. We get bored, we get involved with other people or other things in order to divert ourselves, and we take on too much.
By the way, boredom represents another type of desperation. Even if someone were to come along, wave a magic wand, and solve all our problems, we would still drive ourselves nuts with boredom. I remember back before the personal computer, when things were genuinely boring. And even then we talked about our "lives of quiet desperation": Alcoholism, pill-popping, spouse-beating, misery in the home, etc.
Yeah the world sucks, but it always sucked. Meantime, no one of us can embrace the world; we only control our tiny corner of it (largely limited to ourselves and our immediate environment). Thus the answers have to come from inside. People need to learn to entertain themselves without overwhelming themselves.
PS. I had to laugh: At the bottom of the thread, under the heading of "Similar Threads" was the thread title "Dangerous lives of altar boys." That's a different kind of desperation.
