Too Much Time

We solved survival. Now we must solve purpose.

Too Much Time

By Jim Reynolds | www.reynolds.com

For most of human history, survival wasn’t theoretical. It was daily.

Food, shelter, protection, work. Your body was tired at night. Your mind had clear tasks. Effort and necessity were aligned.

That condition did three quiet things:

• It structured time.

• It limited rumination.

• It tethered identity to contribution.

When survival occupies you, you don’t have infinite psychological bandwidth. You don’t spiral as easily. You don’t invent as many abstractions to fight about. Your worth is tied to usefulness.

Modern prosperity disrupted that architecture.

We removed the constant survival pressure — which is good — but we didn’t replace it with a coherent substitute structure. Now we have:

• Vast discretionary time

• Infinite digital stimulation

• Minimal physical exertion

• Constant comparison

• Manufactured urgency

The human mind evolved for scarcity, effort, and tangible contribution.

It did not evolve for endless scrolling and ideological micro-conflicts.

When survival is handled but purpose is not, the energy has to go somewhere.

It often goes to:

• Status games

• Outrage cycles

• Identity construction

• Abstract moral combat

• Self-diagnosed crises

“Keep the kids busy” isn’t just parental wisdom — it’s civilizational insight.

Idle energy becomes mischief.

Idle imagination becomes grievance.

Idle strength becomes aggression.

That doesn’t mean we should romanticize hardship.

But it does suggest something uncomfortable:

Prosperity without purpose is destabilizing.

The natural state may not be constant survival stress — but it is meaningful exertion.

Humans need:

• Resistance

• Contribution

• Structure

• Fatigue earned honestly

If we remove struggle entirely, we don’t get peace.

We get drift.

And drift, at scale, becomes cultural decay.

The solution is not returning to subsistence farming.

It’s reintroducing structured effort — physical, intellectual, civic.

Work that matters.

Responsibility that weighs something.

Obligations that cannot be scrolled past.

A society that eliminates all friction may eventually eliminate its own coherence.

The devil’s work is rarely dramatic.

It’s boredom plus imagination plus no meaningful outlet.

Bob says: We don’t talk about this much.

But it may explain more than we admit.

The tension in this concept is powerful:

We solved survival.

Now we must solve purpose.

And that second problem is harder.