netmouse: (Default)
netmouse ([personal profile] netmouse) wrote2005-01-12 08:16 am
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

(no subject)


It must, I think, be admitted that the most intelligent young people in Western countries tend to have that kind of unhappiness that comes of no adequate employment for their best talents.


...


Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort with powerlessness. Powerlessness makes people feel that nothing is worth doing, and comfort makes the painfulness of this feeling just endurable.


-Bertrand Russell, 1930

The ConQuest of Happiness


Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[identity profile] mishamish.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 05:40 am (UTC)(link)
I am *SO* yanking this...

I definitely need to read more Bertrand Russell.

News?

[identity profile] robyn-r.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
Is this to read you heard news about the job you were going for?

What's the word on this? Didn't hear how your presentation went last week.

Robyn
ext_13495: (Default)

Re: News?

[identity profile] netmouse.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)
no, I haven't heard on the job I am going for - last word is I did the presentation and three other interviews and met half the people there and they were going to check my references and get back to me.

In any case, my last day at the Caravan Shop is Wednesday, January 18. I am working on lining up a consulting project to start the 24th if I haven't been hired by then...

--I think my presentation went well, and I think the rest went well, and we'll just have to see.

Um.

[identity profile] treebones.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
That hits kind of close to the bone. It hasn't stopped me from doing things. But I know that feeling well.
metalfatigue: A capybara looking over the edge of his swimming pool (politics)

[personal profile] metalfatigue 2005-01-12 07:21 am (UTC)(link)
That has changed since 1930. Unfortunately, it changed back.

[identity profile] matt-arnold.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
From the title of the book it sounds like Bertrand Russell has a solution in mind. Does he?

[identity profile] hiyami.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 11:43 am (UTC)(link)
Can I copy to my LJ? It does ring a bell...
ext_13495: (Default)

[identity profile] netmouse.livejournal.com 2005-01-12 04:05 pm (UTC)(link)
sure. I just copied it from the book, after all. :)

another interpretation

[identity profile] jcpchelin.livejournal.com 2005-01-14 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Maybe the kind of powerlessness he means is that while educated individuals can see the rights and wrongs and ins and outs in society, we cannot easily change policy and law or the way things are.
Flat | Top-Level Comments Only