At the bottom of every technological invention it seems that the solution that invention is solving is often based in avoiding human pain, or attempt at achieving one of it's antonyms, comfort.

I am no stranger to this unwelcome but ever seemingly present companion. In addiction recovery programs we are taught that pain is the reason why the addict chooses their addiction, and another type of pain is why they seek to be free of it. One has to outweigh the other before the false comfort of the addiction can be escaped.

Due to modern technology we may now avoid the majority of the pain that was inevitable in times past, but new pains have appeared. A several hour drive by car was at one time days of walking with blistered feet, or a long day on a horses back. A anesthetized surgery today fixes a condition that would be a slow painful death. A houses climate is controlled exactly so it's inhabitants are never too cold or hot. The months of waiting for a response to a letter is now received instantly in a text message.

New pains have arrived with new attempts at solutions. Layers upon layers upon layers. People are connected through technology but are separated by it. All of humans cumulative knowledge is available at our fingertips, but the attention to know what to look at is gone. We pass by our friends probably multiple times a day at a combined speed of 120 miles per hour without even noticing each other. We have so many options we don't know what to choose. Anything can be chosen with one click, and arrive at the front door in less than a day. The package's arrival brings little excitement. We are in constant communication with people near and far but nobody is communicating.

These pains are not new but old. Because there is only one pain, and comfort does not ease it at all.

It was pain in my back that pushed me to pick up learning programming again, envisioning an old future version of me in much more significant pain working the same back breaking job. It was the dull pain of the emptiness of the days that pressed me forward in this endeavor. It was that same pain that budded, flowered, then fruited, that showed me the emptiness of this new journey. A pain there is no pill for.

I sit on my cot, in this nearly empty house, the temperature set for 65F. The walls are bare, the half packed boxes in the other room cause me an internal pain just to think of them. I contemplate all this. I think of all the great inventors, that pushed and pushed and worked day and night before finally delivering that new thing that would deliver a tiny slice of new comfort to the world. What is this?

The pill for my pain when gone was it's own form of misery. If the cure is the disease, what is the next solution?

Some envision the future of humankind in a way that will merge man and machine. Machines will become man, or men will only exist inside machines. Pain will be gone for them. But so will these men. The nerves rebelling and cursing their environment is what it is to be a man. There will never be an invented thing that can heal a broken heart, or a pill to fix a broken brain.

In engineering or scientific situations, denial of possibility is a life or death situation. These things must be certain. When a human is malfunctioning must we also admit that something has gone wrong? Are we but another creatures form of technology? Can a NPC write his own code from within the game? These are questions that seem absurd but when in pain a lot of things may pass through the mind.

If the world is the most advanced, civilized, and refined in 2025 than it has ever been, why do men still make bombs? Why is the collective still so obsessed with violence? For every maker there seem to be 10 takers. 2025 is a scammers paradise, a controlling government's utopia, and a degenerates playground. As comfort increases so does corruption and wickedness. The next new thing is just another link of chain around the wage slaves neck. Is every man's end disillusionment?