Introspective Reflection

Introspective Reflection - meaning Summary

Nonchalance Thwarted by Livelihood

In two lines, Ogden Nash humorously contrasts a desire for perpetual nonchalance and insouciance with the practical necessity of earning money. The speaker claims he would live carefree if not for "making a living," which he calls a "nouciance," turning the comic coinage to underline tension between freedom and economic obligation. The poem’s light tone and witty rhyme compress a social complaint into a pithy epigram.