The Miserable Mill

This book hurt.

When I was in the Army I tried to keep my spiritual life intact. I'd try to keep up with my morning and evening prayers, to hold to the ideals I believe in, and to keep hope alive. I'd learned long ago that,unless you work very deliberately at spirituality, it dies. Keep it going, even if it makes no sense, even if it's painful, and you will be genuinely sustained.  There is no rational process to it: either push forward or stop. Belief is a verb, not a noun.

Most do not know the absolute... Joy... That is going to The Field. I will attempt to explain, so you may empathize without having to go through such a horrible experience. Imagine that, from the moment you wake up (5 am) to the moment you go to sleep (11 pm, possibly later), you are busy with the most boring, most insipid, most useless and stupid work you can imagine.

No, you're not going dumb enough.

Dumber.

Dumber.

Dumber, I say!

But it's all urgent. All of it is "important", and everyone around you is saying it is. And then they stop to complain about how pointless their work is and how they hate it and how they'd wish they could stop. Everyone says the emperor has clothes, and then turns around to say he doesn't. And then continues to say the emperor has clothes.

Constantly.

There's only one rank who doesn't seem to be complaining, by and large. They actually seem kinda excited. They're giving unreasonable orders, don't complain like the others, and never say what they're doing is pointless. Ever.

I am, of course, talking about the Army Major, in all his profane glory.

What's so special about the Major and his shiny gold oak leaf? He's not in charge. He doesn't have a unit. And that's just it: he doesn't answer directly to anyone, while being the advisor. He is isolated from the effects of his ideas, and may come to like the smell of all his farts. He loses touch with the men and isn't under threat like a captain or a lieutenant colonel.

Nothing will destroy a unit like a bad Major.

Oh, I didn't mention, sorry, you're in a tent with no privacy, whatsoever. If you think you have a spot to take a few minutes, even really a few seconds, you're wrong.

But now imagine you're a kid who only gets one square meal a day, is paid in coupons, and it gets worse, doesn't it?

When you're under that level of stress you just sorta... Go into a trance. You can't help yourself. Life just gets so mind-numbing, so tiring, so exhausting, that you can barely summon anything purposeful. Outside of Field I'd always managed a more-or-less consistent prayer schedule. That was almost impossible in Field: everything was designed to keep me occupied until I collapsed after 18+ hours of work.

Honestly I'm surprised Klaus needed a hypnotist to fall into a trance. It's so easy to do with all the stressors he was under.

How does one stay out of this trance? Well, first you have to acknowledge that all societies are designed to focus you beyond your own problems. 

If it's done right, you will be able to work with others and find fulfillment and answers for your own interior questions in working with others. Humans are relational being first, and that's what society should be enabling. With relationship comes questions, with questions comes empathy.

But if it's done wrong? You're isolated, caught up in a series of stressors that break you down mentally and spiritually, constantly otherizing, constantly asking you not to think, providing rewards for turning your brain off and letting yourself be dictated to. You don't investigate. Your basic function as a relational being is cut down.

Which one are you in, now?

There is no in-between, folks. You're either being enabled to relationship or you're being isolated to manipulate, on a societal level.

Given the society Mr. Snickett chooses to write about here,  I can guarantee he doesn't think most children growing up in today's society, his target audience, are in the former.

The fact that the folks in his book have stopped noticing they're being isolated is the point.