> Suppose your reaction to discomfort is to retreat or isolate yourself from it. Why wouldn't that be my reaction? Seems a pretty normal reaction to most disco

> Suppose your reaction to discomfort is to retreat or isolate yourself from it. Why wouldn't that be my reaction? Seems a pretty normal reaction to most discomfort. I lean into discomfort only when necessary and avoid it otherwise at all costs, that strategy has gotten me pretty far in my half+ century. But even if we assume the proposition that people somehow become more withdrawn as they withdraw... what's the downside? Perhaps your downtown really is a mess and they choose to avoid it. I'm guessing you're not a mind reader, and yet you've created a narrative that your friends have withdrawn due to their inability to handle discomfort and are now... what exactly, bad for the earth? (Recall, that was literally the proposition you responded to.) Sounds rather arbitrary as well as subjectively punitive to me. EDIT: This reminds me of me when I was in my 20's. I used to look down on people who went on vacation and stayed in hotels, or god forbid, resorts. I saw them as soft-headed sheeple who needed to be spoon-fed "fun in a can". Not me. I backpacked. I went to developing nations. In my mind, if you went to a foreign country, you didn't really "visit it" unless you lived among the natives and got your fingers dirty. I got giardia in Belize, was held up at gunpoint in Serbia, escorted by soldiers in Israel, woke up in a roach infested bed in a hostel in Thailand. ... But today? I want to snap my fingers and have someone bring me a cocktail while I sit poolside and sun my fat belly. I no longer enjoy wallowing in 3rd world filth as a means to establish me credentials. I want comfort because I work too goddamn hard for my vacations to involve police reports. So perhaps this is result of cowering away from discomfort, or perhaps it is just a change of priorities.