Creep has multiple meanings and usages. It can be a verb, noun, or an adjective, as in “That creepy dude gave me the creeps as he crept near.” Creep can also be used to modify a concept like budget or age. Then there’s comfort creep, the slow, inexorable advancement of our push to make our lives cushier, which is the primary theme of Michael Easter’s The Comfort Crisis.
In “Taking Stock of Our Comfort Zones,” I focused on how comfort creep affects us as individuals. But its reach extends beyond that to our social interactions.
Our senses are on overload. It’s the opposite of comfort creep, however. Instead, it’s been a gusher. Rather than taking in information like how we drink from a fountain, we’re trying to gulp it from a fire hose. And we’re drowning.
Some of the overload is the result of our fast-paced life and the speed of technological advancements. Much of it, though, is by design, thus intentional.
Our mental and emotional comfort zones are being flooded 24/7 by pernicious operators whose goal is to sow discord. Distrust and discomfort have soared among the populace. What were considered to be settled issues, like reproductive freedom and the right to vote, have become unsettled.
The wealth gap, once a fissure, has become so much of a chasm that we’re co-existing in a two-tiered society. As the economic elite’s wealth explodes, everyday people fret daily about their daily bread. By daily bread, I mean far more than their food supply.
When one becomes overwhelmed, it’s natural for them to circle their wagons out of a sense of self-protection both on an individual basis and within their social circles. That correlates to peoples’ natural inclination for homeostasis—intellectual or emotional equilibrium—within their psyches and social network. When their outer world is in a constant state of bedlam, they naturally seek shelter from the swirling storms and hunker down within their safe place.
The pernicious operators know that and strategize accordingly. In short, they play on peoples’ anxieties and fears.
When he was on the north tundra of Alaska with just two others on a caribou hunt, there was an underlying aspect Easter had to do out of necessity: separating himself from his family and his professional and social network. Fortunately, it was only for a brief duration, and he wasn’t completely alone.
Many have resorted to self-isolation to survive mentally and emotionally. In psychology, it’s called maintaining one’s allostatic load, which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “the process by which a state of internal, physiological equilibrium is maintained by an organism in response to actual or perceived environmental and psychological stressors.”
Psychological stressors are part of life. In a way, they help make life interesting. But an overload of them can lead to bad stuff. We intuitively understand that, so we adjust to mitigate their effects.
Essentially, there are two ways to address stressors: in an unhealthy or healthy manner. Easter cites Trevor Kashey, a nutritional authority, who said that people of healthy weight don’t have better genes or a high metabolism. It’s largely because they cope with stress by going for a walk rather than seeking solace in comfort food.
That’s physiologically, but it works the same way psychologically. One way to find comfort is to sequester—silo–ourselves with like-minded people who affirm our beliefs. That though, according to our friends at M-W, “hinders communication and cooperation with others.”
Siloing works inwardly given how one can self-silo and outwardly toward others. Regardless, both are injurious, psychologically harmful to one’s psyche and socially and politically to one’s fellow citizens.
A powerful antidote for our social and political ills is to step out of our comfort zones and go for a stroll—associate—with others with whom we might not agree on a range of issues. Not only would it be beneficial to one’s psyche and their fellow earthlings, it would be kryptonite to the pernicious operators.
In Walden or Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau asks, “What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another.”
Thoreau is spot on. Breaking down social-political separation requires a meeting of minds.
Imagine the salubrious effect Americans engaging in unheated, intelligent conversations with folks holding opposing viewpoints have. That potential scares the bejesus out of certain power brokers. An outcome I’d find comforting.
