A Digression on the Subject of a Quiet, Cozy Domestic Life
Once upon a time, the average person couldn’t read or write, believed very fervently in a local god or two, and never strayed much farther away from the place they had been born than they could manage on foot before the sun started to go down.
In those days, just about the greatest aspirations anyone could ever have were a full belly, someone to hold at night, and a few roly-poly babies who survived past their roly-poly babyhood.
The truly ambitious might have yearned to kill a wild boar bigger than the boar that their cousin was always bragging about, or to own a necklace made of red coral beads as beautiful as the one owned by their uncle’s second wife.
It was impossible to wish for anything more, because you can’t wish for something that you can’t even imagine.
Stories, when they were told, were about the gods or the exciting boar exploits of the ancestors.
No one knew that they could be dissatisfied with their full bellies, loving companions, and roly-poly offspring who survived long enough to become insufferable on the subject of boars.
Then, one day, in every little village or clan roundhouse or family cave everywhere in the world, a traveling minstrel (or the local equivalent) wandered through and asked to exchange some food for a few stories. Everything went downhill from there.
As it turns out, a quiet domestic life is much more achievable than adventure, glory, and a royal crown.
It’s also, unfortunately, often the case that a person successfully slays the dragon, solves the riddle, and doggedly scrambles their way to the highest frozen peaks of fame, fortune, and success, then takes a moment to catch their breath, looks around a bit, and says, in a voice both astounded and despairing, “But I don’t feel any different! ”