Is modern era comfortable, but empty?

[Angrboda]

Lately I have been thinking about the kind of lives that most people lead nowadays, and can’t help but thinking that we are living in such a way that is fundamentally incompatible with our nature.

Nowadays most of our necessities are satisfied, and there is a lot of entertainment available, nowadays pretty much 24/7 thanks to our phones. Work is another factor that comes into play, since we spend most of our day, and perhaps life, working usually meaningless jobs.
Add to that an education that only exists to brainwash us, and teach us a lot of meaningless things.

I think this environment has made us forget what is of most importance in life, and stops us from exploring ourselves, and the world around us. There is more to life than this.

Now I am not romanticizing the past. I know there was a lot of awful stuff around. But those who managed to live (and not be slaves), many lived very fulfilling and adventurous lives, achieved great things. And I think that living through hardships leads to a more fulfilling life and wisdom than scrolling through Tik Tok or Instagram.

Many examples can be mentioned. Writers such as Dante Alighieri, Miguel de Cervantes, scientists such as Galileo, artists such as Da Vinci, philosophers such as Spinoza, and the list goes.

Nowadays too many institutions control how we live, the state and companies together dictate how we live, how we socialize, how we think, where we work, where we live, etc.

Yes modern medicine and anestesia is nice. But there must be more to life than the avoidance of pain (which in some cases is still not possible nowadays).

These are vapid generalizations. Tolstoy has said that, "All happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." In a similar way, meaningfully lived lives tend to share a lot of commonalities, but the specific ways in which the opportunity to live a meaningful life is squandered are unique and idiosyncratic. Generalizing that people on average live less meaningful lives is both hard to justify, but also overlooks the fact that it is at best a gross generalization which is honored more in the breach than anything.

What we can say is, with the exception of the last decade or so, people live longer lives today than they did in the times that you idealize. So which is worth more, a short but meaningful life, or a long life with less import? Regardless of which way you respond, your answer isn't a rational, objective reality but simple a conclusion based upon your perspective and your subjective reality.