Your most humble and obedient servant

[beeja]

Hello there,

Pls help me clarify what the bold text means. Tks.

1) Service of others has gotten a weird reputation these days. We seem to have lost the fun and spontaneity that can be associated with it. Somehow we now associate it with dreary servitude and shuffling around - a kind of subtle inferiority.

what does "spontaneity" here mean?

2) President George Washington was known for signing all his letters, "Your most humble and obedient servant".

pls explain the bold sentence.

3) "I'm not feeling as much commitment to my wife as I used to", they will say. I expect them to hold their stomachs, probing for the pocket of pain that went away.

pls explain the bold sentence.

4) I would show the world who was in control. Not the boring grown-up world that wants me to be places on time. No! I myself was in charge of my life! I would suffer any embarrassment I could to keep that illusion of control.

pls explain the bold sentence.

Thank you!

[Tdol]

1 I think it means that we have lost the freedom to act freely when serving people, the ability to respond to things as they occur.
2 It's an old-fashioned and polite way of ending a letter, but it does show that the President saw himself as a public servant, not their master.
3 I'm not really sure, but the person seems to be suggesting that the pain that went away is the feeling for the wife.
4 Presumably the person is planning to be late to show that he or she is in control of events.