Dear Prudence,
“The Silver Key,” a short story by H.P. Lovecraft, starts with the line: “When Randolph Carter was thirty he lost the key to the gate of dreams.” The next sentence continues to explain how “as middle age hardened upon him” he felt his ability to dream was “slipping away little by little, until at last he was cut off altogether.” It’s a quote that is increasingly resonating with me as the responsibilities of adulthood and the demands of work and family close around me. Each day is dictated by conditions out of my control, and I feel disconnected, like a machine on autopilot. I would say I was depressed but there is no strong emotion, just deep anhedonia. In the Lovecraft story, Carter finally escaped into fantasy, but that really isn’t an option for me. Is this really just a consequence of aging? Is it common for people to feel like cogs in a machine at this stage in life? Are we truly, to paraphrase Thoreau, doomed to live “lives of quiet desperation”?
—Searching