All his life, Rodey McQueen had expected “something special to happen” as a result of his grand-scale finagling, his hotels and his ski valley, his motels and his banking interests and the Dynamite Shrine complex. But a mystical, magical rapport with his realized dreams had failed to materialize. Instead, the rhythms of his work grew more pressing, he felt a more urgent drive to expand, grow, accumulate. It had never been, and was not now, possible to stop, reflect, or really enjoy. The result was an insinuation of frantic feelings, even panic, into his daily labor. Yet McQueen had an honest longing for rest and retirement. He had a longing to cast his arms around a complete experience—his life’s work—and be able to judge it and enjoy it and inspect it much as he might judge and enjoy and inspect a fabulous painting. But he had chosen a métier which allowed no summing up. Capitalism had no limitations: Progress, American-style would sit still for no photographs: the Betterment of Chamisaville condoned no reflection in tranquility upon the meaning and origin of things.

— The Magic Journey by John Nichols (New Mexico Trilogy, #2)