Gratification is a harmony between our
desires and our possessions. It is ever incomplete, it is the thankful
acceptance of part. It is a mental pleasure in the quality of what one
receives, an unsatisfiedness as to the quantity. It may be an element
in happiness, but, in itself,--it is not happiness.
Satisfaction is perfect identity of our desires and our possessions. It
exists only so long as this perfect union and unity can be preserved.
But every realized ideal gives birth to new ideals, every step in
advance reveals large domains of the unattained; every feeding
stimulates new appetites,--then the desires and possessions are no
longer identical, no longer equal; new cravings call forth new
activities, the equipoise is destroyed, and dissatisfaction reenters.
Man might possess everything tangible in the world and yet not be
happy, for happiness is the satisfying of the soul, not of the mind or
the body. Dissatisfaction, in its highest sense, is the keynote of all
advance, the evidence of new aspirations, the guarantee of the
progressive revelation of new possibilities.
Content is a greatly overrated virtue. It is a kind of diluted despair;
it is the feeling with which we continue to accept substitutes, without
striving for the realities.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59