The other interpretation is that man is ever seeking for some _far-off_, great, _extraordinary_ pleasure, joy, or satisfaction, something in the future, rather than living in the smaller joys of the _now_. The child longs to be the youth or maiden, enjoying "sitting up at nights," "going to parties," "eating candies," "going out with the boys," "smoking like a man"; the youth eagerly works for the time when he shall be his own master, control his own business; the maiden, have her lover, marry successfully, become the mistress of her own house; the grown man looks forward to and works desperately for the time when he shall have "made his pile," and the woman to "an assured place in society." These, and a thousand and one "_pursuits_" engage men and women.
In my own life I am eagerly desirous to radiate the opposite of both of these conceptions. I certainly do not wish to belong to the class pictured in Christ's parable of the rich man; he who thought only of the so-called good things of this life which he would enjoy now--he who said: "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." The slightest observation of life, of the men and women one meets daily, soon convinces one of the hollowness, the dissatisfaction, the incompleteness of all earthly things. The subject is too trite to need any amplification. Yet, the wonder of it is, that, in spite of this fact, the great majority of people still thus strive for wealth, place, power, honor, social success, possessions, attainments. Why is it that this _ignis fatuus_ has such power of allurement? Why is it that men and women are so foolish, so slow to rule their actions by their own inner spiritual awakenings, rather than the habits and fashions followed by others?
I have no desire or ambition for fame, for honor, for success, for place, for power, _as such_. They are useless to me save as I may use them for the benefit, the happiness, the pleasure of my fellows. I am slowly awakening to the realization of what I believe now to be a primal fact, viz., that all a man can really hold and enjoy in his living hand, in his soul, in his life, is that which he gives away, shares, distributes among his fellows.
Elsewhere I have quoted Joaquin Miller's lines from _Peter Cooper_: