Exposure to Hardship
As things easier for us as a species, we’re going to look for more ways to revive the danger from which we evolved. This isn’t a new concept. Seneca and other Stoics had rituals around wearing the poorest of clothes and eating the cheapest food, religions all over the world have self flagellation and fasting, lots of philosophies talk about an inoculation against comfort.
However, it’s probably becoming more important as we distance ourselves even further from death, poverty, hunger, and other hardships that we have some means of balancing. This probably why, at least among the Silicon Valley elites, Stoicism, meditation, and other practices of self reflection and limitation are making a comeback. Just look up NOBNOM.
Our biggest issues are when we compare ourselves to those better off than us and regardless of our wealth, there will always be those better and may seem like everyone is better off than us. We can fall into endless misery this way.
So, from time we’re going to find ourselves doing the equivalent of the violent passion surrogate. Occasionally exposing ourselves to more hardships to find happiness when everyone has everything. Things people can experiment with today?
- Abstentions from booze, caffeine, smoking etc
- Fasts from 1–7+ days
- No TV
- Exercise
- Cold exposure
Better we come up with our own ideas before we mandate this on ourselves.
