[delegate]

You can't escape the rat race even if you hide in a cave these days. Life like that is no longer possible, at least not in Europe.

I didn't write that to shame anyone. I happen to like my life in the city with all the negatives.

But sometimes I think about this - is all this 'comfort' worth the destruction of nature ?

[lucianbr]

> I'm really struggling to understand what we've grown into and why this rat race is considered 'better'

> I happen to like my life in the city

Ahh... you struggle to understand why a life you like is considered better than a life you like less, or dislike?

People probably consider it better for the same reasons you like it. It should be obvious.

[modeless]

> Life like that is no longer possible

Completely false. In fact it wasn't easier back in the day. It was much harder. People back then just had hard lives.

[lo_zamoyski]

What are these "rat races"? What makes you think you're doing something worthless? Do you really believe everything is worthless? That's preposterous and nihilistic. If what you are doing is worthless, do something that isn't.

Grandiosity and pride may make you feel unsatisfied, but that's a problem with ego. Our culture is big on empty posturing and hollow spectacle. You don't need to buy into it. Humanity is how it is; perpetually flawed and immature. The main thing you need to escape are your own vices. Your vices are what give foolishness and evil their power over you.

While the secondary purpose of a job is the good it produces, the primary purpose is your growth as a human being. The job, like all other aspects of life, is an occasion to work out your virtue and your humanity in the concrete. Measure your existence according to the objective good of the inner life, not against external things.

Do not try to "immanentize the eschaton". Do not try to locate transcendence in the immanent. That's a major source of much misery. People have an intrinsic yearning for transcendence. When it is misdirected, it results in the hedonistic and ultimately fatal and fruitless hunt for the transcendental within the immanent, of "vertical divinity" within "horizontal creation". Some try to simulate transcendence within the immanent with all sorts of silly gimmicks, but predictably, this always fails. One must locate the transcendence where it actually is; everything is death and superstition. Your job is not the right place to look for it.