The Comfort Crisis

August 02, 2021

The Masters family skipped town last Thursday and headed to the mountains of Western North Carolina for a long weekend with some bicycling friends. We had been planning this trip for a long time, drawn by the cooler temperatures and the promise of being outdoors doing something we all enjoy doing together, pedaling through the countryside. Our route, this trip, covered 56 miles and 7,500 feet of vertical ascent along the Blue Ridge Parkway, including an 18-mile climb up to Craggy Gardens. Much of it was challenging and uncomfortable, something our non-cycling friends have never understood. Why would anyone ever do that on purpose?

The Craggy Gardens climb is a long, slow slog. Even in a group, there is very little chatter. Minds are focused instead on the task at hand: keeping the pedals turning over and getting up the hill. I was thinking of a recent conversation between Russ Roberts and Michael Easter as I pedaled. Russ was interviewing Michael about his new book, The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self.  The thrust of the argument is that Western society has become too comfortable: we put virtually no effort into securing our food, which is processed, sanitized, and calorie dense; and, we are predominately sedentary, spending most of our time in air-conditioned spaces under constant stimulation from cell phones, social media apps, news feeds, streaming services, etc. All this comfort and distraction is wonderful, but it comes at a physical and psychological cost. Rates of anxiety and depression are far higher than they used to be, for example. Easter argues this stems in part from being too comfortable.

One way to combat this is through what he calls a Misogi – performing an incredibly difficult task. The two rules of Misogi are 1) It must be so difficult you are 50% likely to fail, and 2) You cannot die during the Misogi. Easter’s Misogi was a month-long self-supported camping trip in the Arctic that included hunting caribou to survive. It is a very compelling conversation, and I encourage you to check it out.

The climb up to Craggy Gardens took an hour and forty-five minutes of constant effort, a mini-Misogi at best. On the way back home, I pulled out my cell phone, opened the Nest app, and adjusted the thermostat so it would be 75 degrees inside when I arrived. I did so with a sense of gratitude, a sense of irony, and perhaps a touch of denial. Like so many things in life, the trick is finding the right balance.

Mike Masters