We all have it much easier than our ancestor who was trying to outrun a saber tooth cat.

As Engel's pointed out our ancestors hunter gatherers lived in primitive communism sharing everything. It took society to be divided into classes to develop the productive forces, science and technology but I for one feel capitalism has long out lived its progressive era and it is now in crisis.This can end in one of two ways nuclear war because imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism or the means of production taken under control by the proletariat.

It really depends on what you want out of life: if all you want to do is survive, then sure life can be simpler than if you’re trying for something more. Sure, I could have just gotten a job and made an okay living: enough to support myself and not worry about anything else, but that would be boring as all hell and I likely just would have ended up killing myself because I would have been so miserable. I found physics which is challenging and enthralling, but damn does it require a lot of work (I’m not a genius). I like to live a complicated life, it’s interesting and makes me feel a sense of purpose as opposed to pointless.

Life is only as demanding as we make it, or as we let it become. We have choices.For 3 decades I lived a life with a stress level that would have killed some people. Today, due to the choices I have made, my life is much simpler. The extreme highs are not there, but neither are the extreme lows. It is a much more peaceful existence.

We can't stop it but we can keep talking about it. I'm now retired and often find I'm chiding myself for what little I got done in a day...Playing the game still. Guilt came with it in the beginning "you said you were going to start that business" ! My daughter was even chiding me (40 w/a son) until one day she apologized and I told her what I had figured out. " For 40+ years I worked for 'the man', doing what I was toold, so now I'm going to instantly know how to create something of my own?' She agreed and I'm working on it. So much of our generation (boomers) have recieved the short end of the stick - women especially - We dealt with change come so fast and furious that the economy stopped taking care of the people. We women got shafted for pay and now get less in SSI...on and on it goes.

With my lifestyle l have never had a problem with doing nothing. At times it has been what l do best.