lifestyles don't change so easily...

[acroyear]

The Science Creative Quarterly » MALCOLM GLADWELL WRITES THE INTRODUCTION TO A NEW EDITION OF THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY:

Most people, upon finding themselves riding the curb in a vast inky blackness, tend to solve the problem by seeking a vehicle. Call it the “not enough rocketships” approach. But these people, in their final moments, are ignoring a second key insight: the “plenty of space” angle. Typical of the imprisoned thought processes that all too often dominate our brains, the not-enough-rocketships approach focuses only on vehicular solutions. By contrast, people who perceive an abundance of space rarely attempt to remedy the situation. They don’t even see it as a problem.

In the late 1980s a team of psychologists from Virginia Polyamorous Institute conducted a fascinating experiment. They dropped study subjects at random in deserted parking lots. Half of the subjects were from Richmond (they were city folk) while the other half were members of the A’capa’capa tribe of the Central Amazonian Republic.

The results were startling. Urban subjects responded uniformly, slapping their sides in frustration, rummaging in their pockets for cell phones, and eventually returning - via taxi - to their townhouses and condominiums to slurp take-out chow mein and vent their frustrations by posting venomous music reviews on Amazon.com.

And the A’capa’capa? By nightfall, they had erected makeshift shelters constructed from free weekly newspapers and had begun trading jewelry made from carved pigeon bones. By daybreak they had been listed by Fortune 500 and by noon their supple-limbed leader was eating sushi with James Cameron in L.A., discussing the movie rights to his ordeal.