225 ‒ The comfort crisis, doing hard things, rucking, and more | Michael Easter, MA

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  We're living in a 'comfort crisis'.

  Michael Easter, a journalist and author of The Comfort Crisis, argues that modern life has engineered away nearly every discomfort humans evolved with (hunger, cold, boredom, physical effort, exposure to death) and that removing them all has costs to health and well-being. For 99.999% of our evolution, he notes, those discomforts were constant.

• 02

  Getting sober taught him the value of hard things.

  Easter grew up with a single parent and a family history of alcoholism. He drank more than his peers without consequences until about 23–24, living alone in New York for grad school, when he realized that if he kept going he would die early, whether at 35, 55 or 75. He quit in December 2014 and got involved with people with similar struggles, as his mother suggested; the early 'white-knuckling' was the hardest thing he'd done.

• 03

  Boredom is a signal, and smartphones killed it.

  Boredom is an evolutionary discomfort telling us the return on how we're spending time has worn thin, so go do something else. Easter traces external stimulation from 1920s radio to 1950s television to June 29, 2007, the iPhone's launch, which he calls the death of boredom. He cites data that Americans spend around 12 hours a day consuming media, and recommends letting boredom happen for creativity and reflection.

• 04

  Nature works best without a phone.

  Easter's rule when he brings friends rucking or into the backcountry: no phone, no podcast, no music. Disconnection plus nature delivers benefits that screen-mediated outdoor time doesn't.

• 05

  Hunting changes how you think about food and death.

  Hunting is 'extreme boredom and moments of pure panic', scouring thousands of acres, not action-packed. Killing your own food makes the cost of a meal, and the ease of modern food, viscerally clear. Attia recounts his daughter's first hunt; Easter describes an elk hunt at 11,000 feet that reshaped his thinking about life and death.

• 06

  Happiness can thrive without Western comforts.

  In Bhutan, a country of roughly three million (with around 600,000 in the capital, Thimphu, by Easter's figures), GDP ranks low globally but happiness measures rank high; one researcher found about 92% of Bhutanese say they are happy. Death is woven into culture: people contemplate it several times a day, and clay tsa-tsas made with cremated ashes sit everywhere, sometimes 300 at a roadside bend.

• 07

  Perspective on deep time helps.

  If Earth's history were one calendar year, all recorded human history fits into roughly the last 27–33 seconds before midnight on New Year's Eve. Easter says he'd rather be homeless today than king of France 500 years ago, a reminder of how much our comforts have improved life and of our responsibility to use them well.

• 08

  Misogi: challenges with a 50% chance of success.

  Borrowed from a Japanese purification concept, a misogi is a once-a-year challenge you have about a 50% chance of finishing and that won't kill you. The point is to learn that you chronically undersell your capabilities and to carry that confidence into everyday life.

• 09

  Rucking is a near-perfect fitness tool.

  Walking with weight on your back combines cardio and strength. Running loads joints with roughly eight times body weight per stride versus about three times for walking, so even adding 30% of your body weight while rucking stresses the knees less than running. Heavy rucking can push heart rate high; Attia saw 150s–160s on a hard ruck versus his usual 130s–140s.

• 10

  Load, packs and practice.

  Attia and Easter ruck with about a third of their body weight as fast as they can walk, which is simply uncomfortable. But even 20 lb during phone calls 'sneaks in' steps with load. A hip belt helps shift weight off the shoulders for heavy packs over 100 lb.