The Comfort Crisis (Book Review)

The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self, by Michael Easter

I suppose it’s inevitable that a society preoccupied with comfort and technology would provoke a backlash. It’s hard to argue with the basic premise of The Comfort Crisis. There’s little doubt that a mostly sedentary lifestyle where we stare at screens most of the day and subsist on processed foods is far from ideal. Michael Easter, however, goes to the opposite extreme as he alternates chapters of lifestyle suggestions with accounts from an extreme hunting trip to the Arctic. This expedition is an example of what Easter calls a misogi, a term taken from a traditional Japanese Shinto ritual. As Easter explains it, a misogi is an extremely challenging task where you only have a 50% chance of success. Like many modern-day interpretations of ancient ideas, I’m not sure if this gung-ho spirit is exactly what the Japanese had in mind. From the little research I did, misogi was originally a purification ritual that specifically involves immersion in water to cleanse the body and mind.

The literal meaning of misogi may not be essential to Easter’s point but it illustrates how modern authors and self-help gurus reinterpret traditions for their own purposes. Another criticism of the book leveled by many readers is that it assumes a certain privilege (or maybe a comfortable…