Monday, November 25, 2013

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Sermons Not Spoken (1985), chapter 2:
The very repetitiveness of the cares of the world can thus make their claim on us predominant. Such cares can also create a self-serving rhythm to life, be it humdrum hedonism, humdrum humanism, or humdrum nihilism.

Once we are desensitized and dulled by the cares of the world, the routine of schedules and merely surviving becomes so consuming, so self-reinforcing, and so self-serving. Though we might be stirred to resist an outright political dictatorship, the dominating cares of the world keep us compliantly in our places. Thus, scarcely sensing what might have been, we are contented with what is.