To exist is to make oneself a lack of being; it is to cast oneself into the world.

Those who occupy themselves in restraining this original movement can be considered as sub-men. They have eyes and ears, but from their childhood on they make themselves blind and deaf, without love and without desire. This apathy manifests a fundamental fear in the face of existence, in the face of the risks and the tensions which it implies.

The sub-man reject this “passion” which is his human condition, the laceration and the failure of that drive toward being which always misses its goal, but which thereby is the very existence which he rejects.

— Excerpt, The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir. p. 45

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This morning as is my habit I drove the short distance to Starbucks on State and 3rd in Geneva to pick up a cup of coffee.  The shop was closed.  A sign on the door read, “closed today for technical issues.”  Remembering that the Starbucks on Randall Road could meet the need for a comforting hot cup of dark roast, I made may way over to Randall Road.  As I approached the entry to the Randall road shop a sign on the door read, something like “the cafe will be closed off and on, drive-up only will be open.”  Lucky to have purchased my coffee, I walked away from the shop troubled, ruminating about the wider meaning of the two hastily posted door signs.

Is this how it ends I wondered?  You know, a given civilization, a way of life…  A catastrophe overtakes a people; they are not able (willing) to envision a recovery by practicing step by step measures which will improve the odds of the survival of innumerable institutions which compose their society.  Put simply, what happens when there’s no near term remedy for short staffing?  When not enough of your trained employees are able to show up for their shift, then what?  Especially if they happen to be dispirited, or worse demoralized by say, – overwork, mental exhaustion, inability to imagine a desired future?  Beyond the corps of workers at Starbucks, imagine the consequence if such a condition should apply to all manner of businesses.  Imagine operating an airline, or a school, or a warehouse…

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I am fascinated by reading the book by Simone de Beauvoir.  de Beauvoir survived the Nazi occupation of France.  She was a firsthand witness to irrational, cold brutality. 

She writes of a possible way-of-life that is manifestly risk adverse.  To exist is to be aware of jeopardy.  One either embraces the inevitability of failure, of always missing the goal, and to live with passion nevertheless, to say “yes” to uncertainty.  Or one cloaks oneself in apathy to conceal the fear-of-being that has overwhelmed the personality.  One might assume a machismo facade of a gun fetish, or allegiance to a manifestly cruel and tyrannical failed leader, or a disaffection with the republic which we have and a willingness to participate in acts of treason.  A more likely capitulation to fear, refusal to take any stand, to aggressively refuse responsibility, chameleon-like in one’s thought and speech. 

Thoughts?