Quote from "A Reasonable Life"
"Most of you might dismiss this as the raving of some idealist who simply doesn't fit into the modern, well-ordered world. That's probably true. But where exactly do you yourself fit in? Where and when in this world do you feel wildly happy? Or truly free? Or fiercely alive, or at peace, or even just content? i don't think these emotions are an extravagant luxury. I would think them to be the norm among a species that trumpets itself superior to all others in both intellect and spirit. I would think them the norm in anybody's life, and if they're not, then perhaps he doesn't fit into the world any more than I. And if, as it seems, so many of us live without experiencing these emotions, living the ilfe of a restless drone, if so many of us qualify as Freud's 'civilization's discontents,' then perhaps it is not we who don't fit into this world, but it is this world that does not fit in with us.
And if this is true, then perhaps it's time we stop changing ourselves to death. Stop changing jobs, cars, houses, wives and husbands, the color of our hair, the size of our thighs or our bank accounts. None of these have worked together or alone. And if all of this self-changing has brought no lasting joy, then why do we believe that the next one will bring salvation? Maybe it's time to leave ourselves alone. Maybe it's time instead to change the world"
p. 66-67
And if this is true, then perhaps it's time we stop changing ourselves to death. Stop changing jobs, cars, houses, wives and husbands, the color of our hair, the size of our thighs or our bank accounts. None of these have worked together or alone. And if all of this self-changing has brought no lasting joy, then why do we believe that the next one will bring salvation? Maybe it's time to leave ourselves alone. Maybe it's time instead to change the world"
p. 66-67