More comfort, more misery

TD Houfek passed along an excellent article commenting that our increasingly comfortable and customized environment is eroding our tolerance for annoyance and circle of friendship. At Burning Man, besides just the lack of commerce, I noticed that the physical hardship made interaction more obvious; everybody needed something physical (shelter, food, love), and it was relatively direct to communicate a desire to meet this need on the playa. In the real world, transactions often enter us into interactions with people we care nothing about, and for whom our goals are an efficient resolution with minimal friction, and therefore minimal contact.

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