Engage: Part Three

The irony is we are not comfortable. The mom driving the SUV with the child star on it is soulless. The father who takes on a suffocating commute for the sake of the family is exhausted. The teenager who is taught to put on a “perfect face” even when things are not is lost. The child who is taxied to one event after another has forgotten how to dream and have an imagination. In the opening paragraphs of Message in a Bottle, Walker Perry asks, “Why does man feel so sad? Why do people often feel bad in good enviroments and good in bad enviroments? Why do people often feel so bad in good enviroments that they prefer bad enviroments? Why is it that a man riding a good commuter train home from Larchmont to New York, whose needs and drives are satisfied, who has a good home, a loving wife and family, good job, who enjoys unprecedented cultural and recreational facilities, often feels bad without knowing why?” That is a great question. “Why do we feel bad in good enviroments and good in bad enviroments? Another way of saying this is “why is ‘Desperate Housewives’ the most popular show being watched in the suburbs?”