2024-05-10
19 分钟In the 1st century AD, the Greek orator and philosopher Dio Chrysostom wrote: “Luxury makes pains seem even harder, and dulls and weakens one’s pleasures. For the person who is always luxuriating and never touches pain will end up unable to endure any pain at all, and also not able to feel any pleasure, not […]
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In the first century AD, the greek orator and philosopher Dio Chrysostom wrote, Luxury makes pains seem even harder and dulls and weakens ones pleasures.
For the person who is always luxuriating and never touches pain will end up unable to endure any pain at all and also not able to feel any pleasure, not even the most intense.
In the modern west.
We have access to pleasures, comforts and entertainments which kings of old could not have dreamed of.
But with all this luxury, many people are chronically stressed, anxious, depressed, or struggling with physical debilitations.
In this video, we explore the intimate connection between pleasure and pain and examine why too many comforts and pleasures are contributing to modern man's mental and physical malaise.
In his book the comfort crisis, Michael Easter we lack physical struggles.
We have too many ways to numb out like comfort food, cigarettes, alcohol, pills, smartphones and tv.
We dont have to deal with discomforts like working for our food, moving hard and heavy each day, feeling deep hunger, and being exposed to the elements.
But we do have to deal with the side effects of our comfort, long term physical and mental health problems to understand just how comfortable and pleasurable our lives are.
We can contrast modern life to the realities our hunter gatherer ancestors faced for much of human history.
On a near daily basis, our ancestors walked miles to find water and forage food.
They expended enormous amounts of energy bringing down large mammals and regularly engaged in persistence hunting, which involved tracking and chasing prey until the animal collapsed in exhaustion.
Once they made a kill, they would cut the animal up and walk miles back to camp carrying massive pieces of raw meat.
Or as Michael Easter wrote, before we figured out animal husbandry and crop cultivation, we were essentially professional athletes whose livelihood required us to be physically active.
Our ancestors didnt work out because nearly all of their waking hours were spent doing things that today we would classify as exercise.
Studies show it was not uncommon for these hunters to run and walk more than 25 miles in a day.