[danieltillett]

We tend to idealise the past like it is some sort of costume drama - in reality the community of the past was very restricting. You did whatever your father did if you were a man and raised a dozen kids (most of whom died) if you were a woman. Forget about choice or living the life you wanted.

One thing I think many are missing today from our lives is some sort of painful rite of passage struggle to give us perspective. When nothing has gone seriously wrong in your life it is all too easy to focus on the trivial.

[furi]

It certainly was restricting, we didn't tear down those institutions for no reason, but how do we go about assigning relative importance to them? If I had a strong community but no choice in my occupation (especially if I had been raised that way from birth) would I be happier? I instinctively want to say no, I really really like freedom, but I don't think I have any real idea. It's also not to say we can't have both, perhaps we've traded one unhappiness (lack of freedom and harsh conditions) for another (lack of community and meaning through directly helping people you care about) and our eventual destination is finding some happy medium between the two.

[danieltillett]

My experience in life is people’s happiness level seems to be fairly independent of what happens in their life. The happy are happy and the unhappy unhappy.