the envy of low expectations

This evening saw me ramble along East Coast Park. I was in a pensive mood. As I strolled along a particular path, a group of four young people (late twenties, perhaps) walked toward me. A few paces before our paths actually crossed, one of them burst out laughing - a hearty guffaw befitting his rotund frame - elicited by some quip uttered by one of his mates. It was truly a laugh of the carefree; he didn't seem encumbered by the fact that it was late on a Sunday night - merely a few hours to the start of another week and all its concomitant drudgery. And judging by his torpid gait and the crude colloquialism of his speech (and I realize I'm being utterly shallow and presumptuous here), he was probably a blue-collared worker, whose manual abilities contributed more to his worth than his intellect. It was then that I thought: what bliss it must be to have as one's predominant concern only to eke out a living just to afford the bare necessities in life and still be able relish its "simple pleasures". The most consequential decisions he probably had to make the entire day were what to eat and what to wear (and judging by both his heft and quality of clothing, the former concern surely - pun alert! - outweighed the latter). As long as he had clothes on his back, food to eat, a roof over his head and perhaps the occasional indulgence in the most basic physical pleasures, he would be contented. But for the rest of us who are burdened by the torturous weight of knowledge and wonder, we can only imagine the opiate joy of such hollow bliss. For more than a while, I truly envied him.