drown out the last shreds a-clear-beach of his imagination. This is called happiness.

Happiness

"A man gets up, goes to work, works & goes home.
He gets up, he goes to work, he works & he goes home.
He does this for five days, then he has two days off.
This is called the weekend.
On the weekends he cuts the lawn, washes the car,
plays tennis, does some work around the house & takes the kids to a movie.
This is called Fun.
A man goes through this fifty times in a row.
Then he gets two weeks off to do what wants-
that is, if he can remember what he wanted to do.
The pressures, the decisions, the routines, the boredom,
the obligations, the interruptions, the confusion, the frustration,
the constant appraisal & reappraisal have scrambled who he was &
washed it down the drain of his ambition until
all he can think of is lying in the sand on a beach
drinking gin & tonic
to drown out the last shreds
a-clear-beach
of his imagination.
This is called happiness."

-- What the Wind Said, Ed Varney