“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau
Most of us are enslaved in one way or another. We are enslaved by our jobs and the circumstances that force us onto the treadmill. We live out our lives, never really free, doing what is expected of us. While the master may be the boss or family or someone else, the real slave driver is us. We resign ourselves to our fate and “what is called resignation is confirmed desperation.” We distract ourselves with games and entertainments, but it is hollow. We waste our time, which is the most terrible thing we can do. The problem is that we cannot free ourselves from our self-image. We fit in our slot and dare not move out. There can be no Lincoln from without come to free us. We must raise the Spartacus from within to see ourselves anew, to cast off our own shackles. We must find our own freedom and use the limited time we have on this earth wisely. Thoreau's grim observation is a call to revolution. Not the revolution of mobs but a revolution of the spirit.
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