Some people with 20 years' experience really have a one year's experience which they have repeated twenty times. Often people simply close their lives to expanded experiences. They eat in the same places, they do the same things, and they follow the same routines. I'm not sure whether it's because they've truly found the best or whether they simply reach a level of comfort, get habitual and fail to see how big and wonderful and varied life can be. Maybe they are like the man who all his life wanted to own a bass fiddle and finally got one and brought it home and simply sawed away on one note all the time. His wife couldn't stand it any longer and asked why in the world he didn't learn another note. With amazement he answered, "They run their hand up and down the fret board playing different notes because they are hunting, but I've already found it." Think of the people who never play on the rich variety of tones that are available to them because they've found the one note that works for them.
I've been concerned about the boredom I see, particularly among affluent women. I don't think they realize that all of their activities really are the same. The themes, locations, decorations change, but parties get to be reproductions of each other. I saw a documentary on the social season in Palm Beach. The non-stop party schedule was all in the name of charity. But the socialites had to engage social secretaries just to get them to the right party at the right time with the right attire. Even when doing good this hyperactivity results in meaninglessness and boredom unless the people are extremely shallow thinkers.
Early in my life I became intrigued with New York society because I was there a great deal and speaking at banquets in the Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria. I met some very sophisticated people. One of the ladies I met told me of restrictive nature of high society. She could only wear dresses a certain number of times; she didn't dare thinking about eating in a hamburger joint; she could not wash even her own clothes because her maid would talk to other maids. She had places to be and things to do, whether she wanted to or not. Her husband had given her five full-length fur coats, none of which were given out of personal feeling of love but simply to display his success. When I listened to her I realized that she lived in a prison with gold bars. And while the slums that I came from knew iron bars more, a prison is still a prison. I decided, right then, that I would not get involved in that. Creating quality experiences means staying free. From my earliest life I have wanted to own myself. Unfortunately I see people with a sign on them: "for sale." Unfortunately they think "this is living." No. That is dying.
