The ironies of life abound, you realize as you get older, at least when you fall into tedium.  The norm is more that the great resources of natural life largely go to waste.  Each rule, condition, each judgment imposed makes it harder for whatever good gift there is to shine through and develop into use.  That forests are cut down, that rivers are polluted, that species should go extinct should come as no surprise.  Even thoughts themselves are too ephemeral to last for long, the mind that holds them changing, moving on.  The innocent Garden of Eden, where everything is perfect, in its place, awaiting its proper use, and from this we are expelled...



So there's that young man and that young woman.  If fate gives them something like a sense of working together toward the same values, the same ends, a similar project, the two similar talents stand a chance of growing into something lasting.  A volunteer effort, just as most good things are achieved.  But otherwise, if not the errors of simple naive idiocy, the innocent optimism, the belief that 'things will work out,' if not the judgmental neighbors, the Kafkaesque, the Shakespearean will quickly take over authoritatively.  And eventually, as history chokes itself with its weeds, egotistical conflicts on all scales, with all the dictatorial ambitions and oligarchs and plutocracies aligning corporate interest with political clout, the trap of playing to perceived public opinion, no one will hear any longer the voice of the teacher or the philosopher, as what they might say, by some great rule of nature and the Universe, no one wants to hear, and if spoken would be irrelevant anyway but to some perfect world which exists only in the imagination.

The hero will only defeat himself, sooner or later, then to discover all the myriad of ironies, all the mythical things that could have helped him along his way, the inspiring soulmate, the mythical mentor, the helpful father in law, the workshop that could have been created, exposure to the world of culture, the patronage of the benevolent emperor.  And what difference would all that have made anyway?  One still has to live out his life as a mortal;  better just to be honest, modestly resigned to the imperfect world and humble tasks and obscurity.

It's not a book anyone would want to write, about the missing out on using all the opportunities given, the moments to be seized.  Even fewer would want to read it.  No one wants to write about the confusions of a foolish young person given to pessimism, with hindsight being so clear, almost devastatingly.  The world would rather read about succeeding, about proper order achieved through perseverance.

However, the fallen must go on living.  Humbled, you pick up the pieces, and do the best you can, even if it isn't adequate.  With fine knowledge and battles with low self-esteem, you go on, very humbly, not expecting to change the world much.

With such thoughts, the intellect is cluttered.  No wonder Buddhist thought is sought, along with meditations, to clear the mind of such things, to live, again, in the present.







Regulations are placed on public school teachers, for example, such as No Child Left Behind, with perfect administerial logic;  students are confined into learning less and less (being directed away from the content-area reading that might organically interest them and pique their curiosities);  teaching becomes imposed, less flexible, less capabler of responding to an individual need.  (Learning is a part of one's personal life, not unlike the affairs of the heart, as one remembers more things that have an emotional impact.)