Another good point,Kat. We are just two generations removed from people who were forced to experience the essentials of life in the daily course of their existence. Often they depended for their day-to-day existence on hunting or farming the land. Families were tight for many reasons, but mainly because they had to be- they needed each other to get in the crop, or to help in case of illness ,death, or famine.Men expected to die for their country, their religion, their family- and they did.

It seems that more and more we have become "experience dilettantes", paying exorbitant prices for the opportunity to raft the Colorado, climb Everest,sail the Caribbean. But if one of us should experience something that's not pictured in the brochures - a broken leg in the Swiss Alps, a drowning death on the Upper Ganges, we're prepared to sue the perpetrators for letting us fall victim to the same danger which was such a thrill to avoid. Even our wars are expected to be bloodless.

Perhaps the problem is not the fear of sacrificing our creature comfort, of casting our lot with the Unknown. Perhaps the problem is the loss of any substantial motivation or need to do this...or in other words, basic human nature, when "what could be" has been replaced by "this is good enough."