Artificial environments tend to breed an inauthentic character

In today's developed world, our society's rapid advancement has lead to lavish comforts and excesses that people in primitive societies can hardly dream of. Yet while enjoying these physical conveniences, it's easy to overlook the unintended effects of such an environment on the development of our character.

If you live in a big city with a steady income, you can basically live to about 70 without much worries of death. On the surface, of course this seems like a good thing. But people that never really consider death as something imminent tend to indefinitely delay the effort of reflecting on whether they are living a purposeful life or not.

On the other hand, in 3rd world countries, life is much more delicate, and because of that people tend to reflect more on what kind of life they want to lead while they still have the chance.

In a big city, you can do dumb things like doing a back flip off a 2-story building for a dare, and perhaps not die because of advanced medical care. Of course, it is good that we are able to help foolish people that make poor decisions, however this commodity also dims our sense of the natural law of cause and effect that also applies to making sound decisions in how we treat others and what we do for our spiritual growth.

In contrast, if you make a similar 'wrong move' in the middle of a wilderness with no advanced medical care available, most likely you will suffer the full consequences of your decision.

For all these reasons, I feel it is good for 'city folk' to be given the experience of living for a good amount of time in a third-world country or in a wilderness setting. In such places natural law is much more apparent and an environment conducive to honest self-reflection is provided.

Stone Mountain, Georgia, 2012

While at first we might cringe at the discomforts, most people find greater solace through the experience that surpasses the temporary distractions. And upon our return to our homey civilization, we can also find a greater appreciation for the conveniences we previously took for granted.