Key points

The experiment Mouse Utopia shows comfort without purpose leads to collapse.

Viktor Frankl emphasized purpose as key to enduring hardship, not physical comfort.

Today's comforts multiply, yet people feel lost without purpose and responsibility.

In the 1960s, behavioral researcher John Calhoun created what he hoped would be a kind of paradise—at least for rodents. His experiment, now known as Mouse Utopia, offered everything a mouse could ever need: unlimited food, no predators, ideal temperatures, clean water, medical care, and all the space they could want (Calhoun, 1973). It was a perfectly controlled world where nothing bad could happen and every physical need was met. And yet it ended in total collapse. At first, the mouse population thrived. But as generations passed, s

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