"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
― Leo Tolstoy
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---As the philosopher Eric Hoffer explained in his 1951 book, The True Believer:
There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed.
People need struggles. If their supply of problems dwindles too low, they begin to embellish the problems they already have, or invent completely new ones. As Hoffer writes:
Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.
The young and privileged are particularly prone to this. They don’t have to worry about money, nor do they have homes or families of their own, so they have nothing to lose, and nothing to conserve. This gives them both the need to find struggles and the luxury to be radical. [ed. See also: Entertain Yourself (LARB); and, The West is bored to death (New Statesman).]
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I see the show downs, slow downs, lost and found, turn arounds. The boys in the military shirts. I keep my eyes on the prize, on the long fallen skies. And I don't let my friends get hurt. All you back room schemers, small trip dreamers. Better find something new to say. Cause you're the same old story. It's the same old crime. And you got some heavy dues to pay. - Steve Miller Space Cowboy
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Getting what we want, not what we want to want: it could be the slogan of our times - Unknown***
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."- John Wooden
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At equilibrium, the evolutionary race is not only to the big and aggressive, but also to a certain number of the small and sneaky.
- Psychologist David P. Barash
