There was this experiment with mice about 30 or 40 years ago. They put two buttons in each cage of dozens of mice. One button delivered food, the other cocaine. This is a true story..

Nearly 100% of the mice opted for cocaine over food. Fascinating. Possible insight into addiction? They published the results with great fanfare amongst the scientific community.

There was one doctor, however, who is not impressed. He argued that those mice were living in prison cells, alone, as extremely social beings. Of course they're going to choose the cocaine. It's the only joy in their otherwise lonely, sad little world.

This doctor created a different environment for the mice. Same 2 buttons. This time he puts them all in the same cage. Gives them unlimited food, water, recreational activities. They wanted for nothing. They could eat, fuck, play all day long.

And eat, play, fuck they did. They stopped choosing cocaine habitually and started doing it occasionally, recreationally. Seriously. They lived like a normal society, no strife. No danger. No needs unfulfilled.

"This is amazing! Publish! publish! publish!" And publish he did. To great fanfare in the scientific community.

But as the experiment continued, something strange happened. The mice stopped reproducing. They started breaking up into a little groups. There was cannibalism, random death from apparent misery. They stopped eating. Stopped fucking. Stopped playing. Started choosing the cocaine button until one by one, they all died.

Once more a paper was published. It was decided that a perfect world is not healthy to anybody. That mice, and most social animals require the expenditure of energy in the pursuit of the perfect world, but without something to constantly push against, to fight for and endure, we are not happy and we will devolve into something unrecognizable. We will all perish.

I think of those poor mice every time I wonder why the fuck I put up with another woman's bullshit.