"Yes, one could humanly be tempted almost to say that in a kind of innocence, it does not even know that it is despair." --Soren Kierkegaard You told yourself you were making progress toward the point from which you could accomplish something of significance but rather than arriving at that place, you find-sitting on the couch there with the house cleaned, the cabinets full and even dinner cooking on the stove, surrounded by the whiteness of empty time, engulfed in the whiteness of empty time-that you have arrived at a cul-de-sac; that is, the point from which nothing of significance can be accomplished. What's more, this cul-de-sac is the point from which no path leads to any other place from which one could accomplish anything of significance. And you can bet the blame attached to never accomplishing anything of significance-that is, of wasting your life-is several orders of magnitude more intense than that of merely failing to complete even every single one of your household duties.