“It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot.” (111)
This quote states exactly how I feel in my life because it says that humans are restless beings who need action in their lives. In my weekly routine, I cannot go a long time without having some sort of adventure because if I don't have action I feel useless in life. I get tired of the usual pedantic book studying at school and want to just get out into the world and explore instead of being confined to classroom walls. My mind gets restless because of the lack of variety of exciting ideas it receives daily, and I try to come up with amazing things to do to feel a bit of adrenaline rush through me.
It is not human nature to live a boring and routine life. This is very well displayed in history where explorers have sought new lands and new people even though they did not know what fate would meet them in those new places. In jail, which is mainly full of uneducated barbarians, one is confined to a plain life where one is not allowed the freedom to explore new thoughts and ideas because one is limited to other intellectual minds whom one can learn from. Even though prisoners can read, for many humans it is hard to understand something without the help or idea support of others who know more. As one of my uncles, who was once a prisoner, recalls, many prisoners revolt by spending their days studying the meaning of their life or just of life itself by lying in their jail beds and escaping into their own world, or by simply pondering upon what they did to get there and how they could have avoid it. This is a revolt in the sense that these prisoners decide to go against what most of society thinks of them (of being heartless beings without feelings and full of evil), and they silently prove to themselves that that is not the case anymore. I think the only humans satisfied with tranquility are those no longer living.
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I agree with what you say it's human nature to want more, but i don't think you talked about how it is show through history enough. Had humans been content with what they had we wouldn't be where we are now; we would still be cavemen in a way. It was our nature to want more that introduced writing systems and languages; our desire to want more that brought out new technologies. Had it not been our desire to want more we would not be here today.
ReplyDeleteInteresting insights and discussion here. Well written, Kevin!
ReplyDeleteDid you think about the context of why Jane wrote this? She is talking about what it means to be a woman in the 19th century? Does this give you a new perspective on women today?