Is modern era comfortable, but empty?

[Aegon]

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).

I will stop the trend of mercilessly shitting on you and say you have a point. We are living in an age of luxury and indulgence, yet rates of depression and anxiety are absurdly high. I think there are a great many issues with the way we've structured modern society.

I've recently listened to a podcast with Dr. Anne Lembke (and subsequently ordered her book, which I should receive in about a week). She's a clinical psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at Stanford. Her theory is that the way we've structured modern society is relentlessly fucking with our dopamine levels, and being surrounded by instant gratification -  social media, internet porn, junk food with high sugar content, etc etc. - is causing us more anguish than joy. I think it's a great point and I agree with her, especially speaking as a young person who spends so much of my time staring at screens.

I don't think living in the past before modern medicine and clean drinking water is necessarily better than modern society, but the incessant assaults on our dopamine receptors is a serious problem that needs addressing ASAP.