I suppose part of what makes the situation where this question would arise a sad situation is that we all want to strive and not merely survive. Or, at least, we all say that we do. But this leaves unexamined the question of what striving actually entails.

Is surviving a precondition for striving? At least this question can be answered, and in the affirmative. It seems that one must first of all survive. Striving can only arise after one has successfully survived. Hence, techniques for striving, though distinct and of a different shape than those needed to survive, are not fundamentally at odds with those techniques needed to survive. Striving, therefore, may simply be a certain mode of surviving–perhaps a matter of “surviving well.”

On this interpretation (that striving is a matter of “surviving well”), all one need do, when one has reached a point of survival without striving, is to adjust and cast-afresh those means by which one survives, so as to yield new practices of striving. This could be a matter of eating things that you find meaning or real joy from eating, beyond merely having value in their sustaining you. Or, it could be a matter of establishing a home which not only shelters you, but provides you with a space where you feel compelled to better yourself, to move yourself in “striving directions,” and, perhaps, to “grow” as a striving individual. It may be that all of our techniques of survival–love, food, sleep, entertainment, etc–can be re-conceived and refashioned in this way, so as to yield real resources for striving-beyond-one’s-surviving.

All this being said, it is undeniable that the problem of how to strive, and of the status of striving within our lives and within our society, remains an open and perhaps unresolvable one. It may be that we never fully know what it means to strive. And yet, it seems to me that simply by raising the question, and by taking the question sufficiently seriously so as to effect changes in one’s life according to it, we have done something in the direction of striving. Looking back many years from now, whether or not we will consider ourselves to “have strived” may depend upon this exact question and response today.

It didn’t go well.

At any rate, why do you suppose they aren’t able to use chainsaws? I thought maybe they didn’t want to spook the wilderness, but they seem perfectly willing to blow them cows up.