I’ve been meaning to link this quote from Jim Geraghty for some time:
“But there’s a fine line between rejecting that life and looking down at that life. Because some people are just fine with jobs that require them to take the New Rochelle train. Some people actually prefer it to the stress, the risk, the time away from family, the constant demands from strangers. And the world needs these people – who get up every morning, go to work to do jobs with no glamor and little or no prestige, wages modest or worse, and whose names never appear in the newspaper. These folks receive a round of applause when they dance at their wedding, and at their retirement party, and that’s about it.”
These folks receive a round of applause when they dance at their wedding, and at their retirement party, and that’s about it.
That touched me deeply. It’s the old humanism, isn’t it? I don’t care too much about making a political point, here, but that passage lodged itself in my magpie brain, and I couldn’t forget it. This is the life of millions, or more, well, surely more, and it’s humbling to think about.
2 responses so far ↓
Jonathan // December 26, 2008 at 6:51 pm |
Tom Wolfe, I think it was, wrote that the western middle-class existence that deep thinkers deride is the best way of life that’s ever existed. Surely this is true.
I am much less troubled by the supposed bleakness of middle-class life than I am by the weirdness and sociopathy of many of the people who attain high positions of political power.
onparkstreet // December 26, 2008 at 8:02 pm |
Yeah, I agree, I don’t really see the bleakness in middle class life that the ‘deep thinkers deride.’ Meaning is up to the person living the life….