I find it remarkable that so much scorn is shown to those with dreams of becoming rock stars simply because they so often fail in their dreams — and that this is scorn is shown to them by average people, who, just like those with dreams of fame, fail to attain their stated dream of a happy, peaceful family life for reasons exactly the same as the rock stars fail: laziness and haste.
It is amazing, isn’t it, that one dream seldom attained is so mocked while another dream, far more common, and even more rarely attained, is everywhere praised?
But our failure is not admitted: the utter failure of the family lives of nearly all human beings is not acknowledged in the slightest. The discrepancies between the ideal and the real are simply discarded — politely swept under the carpet whenever company comes over.
Yet the failings are extraordinary. No one attains a maturity that would qualify them to become a parent — nowhere and at no time is this maturity found. Parenthood is almost exclusively — if not exclusively — a mistake.
No one develops as an individual sufficiently to be a good example to another young individual and so no progress is made — for, at best, a child’s starting point as a human is the highest point in the development of the parent. (There are of course exceptions and Caligula, son of Germanicus, comes to mind.)
The art of living — it is this that we have not yet begun to acknowledge as an art — nor, more importantly, as the highest of all the arts — for it is the father and mother of them all. The fullness of one’s art is a product of the fullness of one’s spirit.
No, instead one is expected to contribute to the corporate constructs of the world, which have made the world less beautiful rather than more beautiful. One is supposed to work — which is, in my mind, either servitude or idleness — or both. For in work one’s spirit does not grow and the world does not become more beautiful.