MORE jobs in the last year than I can remember, and so little sense, through it all, of any purposeful endeavor, of meaningful labor, of real work. Ditchdigger. Bookkeeper. Cashier. Pipe Fitters Helper. It is so easy to become resentful — of an economic system that dictates desires as well as the means to satisfy them, of the tyranny of the clock, of the privileged, even of one’s own unrealized dreams, so naive do they sometimes seem against the deadening routine.
Yet, in the end, there is no one to blame. If I chose, like Thoreau’s friend, to work for the money to buy the railroad ticket, rather than walk, it is because I have become accustomed to the conveniences of the age, and am willing to pay.
