By Marjorie Spock
Aphorisms and Exercises
If we were to look really searchingly into the causes of today’s discontents we might find all of them stemming from a sense of having been disinherited. Few may be able to put a finger on just what has been lost or to say how we lost it. But something vital is missing from experience, an exuberant quality of life that earlier ages seem to have possessed. It can still be witnessed surfacing in the hops, skips, and jumps of early childhood and heard in the deep-chested laughs of tiny babies. But by the time adulthood is reached, a sad diminution has usually taken over, and most grown-ups look for it in vain.