Nihilism.

[21st_medici]

(This might be the right time to consider this, as my own life is going quite well.It seems that some lives just don't work out. A person can do all the right things, make all the smart choices, scrimp and save and toil and try, but in the end their home is still bombed by the Japanese. Or they die in childbirth. Or lightning. Or any of the

Comments

[scorchus]

"Is this what drove the American project? A realization of the likelihood of despair, and the struggle to build the bulwarks against capricious fate?"

As it so happens, yes. That's what I'm writing about.

Well, there's my answer

[21st_medici]

Thanks. :)

I'd suspect, in the multitude of experiences and the numbing complexity of the human mind, that there were a few more motivations. But I'm guessing you're right, nonetheless.