Maybe three generations back life was barely above subsistance level.
You awoke in a shelter you built with your own hands. The ambient temperature was the same as outside. You burned wood you chopped with your own axe. Your toilet was a hole behind your dwelling and there was no toilet paper! If you were hungry; you hunted or planted and waited for the harvest. If you were thirsty you lived close to a stream or dug a well with your own hands.
When the sun set the light went out unless you had a candle or lantern and semidarkness fluttering in strange quivering shadows was your twilight world.
A broken bone...or worse..was perhaps the end of you unless somebody nearby could attend to your peril. Infection from any source could be a death sentence.
Women died in childbirth and men perished of crushing labor and the dulling respite of homemade alcohol.
The amusements, as such, were few and far between. There were no films, videos, DvD's, iPods, recorded music, radios or arcades. A session of cat's cradle or charades might be the summit of societal indulgence in merriment.
Life was harsh, brief and swarming with superstitious whisperings, talismans, luck, curses, fear of God and the easy scorn of intolerant neighbors.
Travel was gruelling and perilous on foot, horseback or stagecoach. Hostiles, highwaymen, rascals, brigands and ne'er-do-wells swarmed the countryside half-starved for an easy target and quick death.
Life and the World is NOT getting worse. It has progressively gotten better and better and better.
What gets worse and worse is our appreciation for how far we've come and how hard the effort was in getting us here!
There are no gurantees in life and never were. But, our embarassing riches drown us in spoiled whining and weak-kneed disaffections.
Life is what we make it.
Always has been. There is an abundance of leisure, wealth, opportunity and social support that never existed before today. Open your eyes and behold it!
