[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.