It is not so difficult to interpret the phrase “eke out a miserable existence”, how then to understand: what, in fact, is meant by this common wording? Where is the criterion that would help separate a successful person from a loser and vice versa. And if success is so sweet, and losing so bitter, then why is one and the other accompanied by deviant behavior?
A verb that will explain everything
In fact, lovers of the Russian language will easily understand what they mean. But suddenly among us there are a lot of beginners. Then we will say that the phrase under analysis is almost completely in the explanatory dictionary in the definition of the verb “vegetate”: “Lead a miserable, poor or meaningless, aimless life.” No, we were by no means deceiving the reader, but it seems that the definition given in the dictionary is not too different from “eking out a miserable existence”. The explanatory dictionary is an official source, therefore it cannot afford such harsh formulations, and the object of research is nevertheless rude in form, whatever one may say.
suggestions
We could paint or describe the phenomena of “miserable existence”, but it is better to give examples in the form of sentences, so it will be clearer:
- Now he is dragging out a miserable, I must say, existence: monotonous work, eternal debt, no wife and children. Do you remember how he was when his parents were alive?
- They say "miserable existence." And usually add "drags". But the thing is that such an assessment depends on the observer. Perhaps a person is doing everything possible, but they say "drags" - horror, huh?
- Martin Eden was also in the class or class of the outcasts, eking out his miserable existence, and in the end who he became. Of course, he burned out, but this is the details.
If life teaches what, then it is that there is nothing final in it. Today, a man grieves for his share and slurred existence, and tomorrow he is lucky, and his being is changing radically. Utopianism? But at least this can be believed.
Synonym
Man is perhaps the only creature that is capable of enslaving himself on his own. But it would be unfair to say that a miserable existence is always just a series of wrong choices. Sometimes a person, in principle, starts from a very low position in the ranking, and his life is hard.
A. Schopenhauer in his epoch-making work “The World as Will and Representation” said that the life of most people boils down to banal survival. For the German philosopher the fame of a pessimist was entrenched, so no one was surprised at his position. However, even if everything is desperately bad, you need to fight for the chance to fix it. And it’s worth starting with education, that is, with replacements to the object of study. We have learned what it is to eke out a miserable existence. Synonyms follow:
There are no surprises, but sometimes they are not needed.