"Since men enjoyed very great leisure, they used it to pursue many kinds of commodities unknown to their fathers; and that was the first yoke they imposed upon themselves without thinking about it, and the first source of the evils they prepared for their descendants. For, besides their continuing thus to soften body and mind, as these commodities had lost almost all their pleasantness through habit, and as they had at the same time degenerated into true needs, being deprived of them became much more cruel than possessing them was sweet; and people were unhappy to lose them without being happy to have them."
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
...I wrote some other stuff, but deleted it. Rousseau is a tough act to follow
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