…and doing what you do the rest of the day, then going to bed and doing it all over. I wonder now if our frustration (that of some of us anyway, including me) doesn’t come from trying to make more of it than that? It brings up once again the question of how to bring meaning into our lives. How well we do that, I believe, dictates how content we can be. The challenge, though, is honestly and objectively doing the work necessary. I think too often we settle for something we’ve been socialized to accept as meaning. For some, that is sufficient. But for the sentient traveler, the itch is not that easy to scratch.
You are as correct about this as correct can be. As Socrates said to the Athenian assembly that sentenced him to death, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The Athenians deeply resented Socratic interrogation and there is indeed a measure of sarcasm and real contempt in his dialectic. His alienation from his fellow citizens was a chasm. Of course, the examined life may not necessarily be worth living either, but if that should turn out to be the case, at least you will know WHY.