Contemporary people are obsessed with means for coping with life. We don’t self-medicate because our lives are wonderful, but because we need comfort to continue living. And many of the innovations we might point to as evidence for society’s progress are themselves comforts that we use to get through the day. A good percentage of the other innovations that have defined the shift from the sixteenth century to our own day have done more to create further discomfort than to alleviate it.
