Yes but even that is a distortion in a way, because. "lacks of good food and clean water and even the slightest understandings of health and social practices. " Were mainly the dramatic bits which actually only impacted their lives now and again, for the most part their lives were just ordinary exactly like ours. Get up, make the bed, eat, drink, work, have some sex, listen to some music, go to bed, sleep, repeat.

@Fernapple
You're very right -- '...even that is a distortion in a way'.

It's impossible to condense any tiny fraction of the experiences of our predecessors into a format we can perceive.
I was recently looking at what we know about Mesopotamia and saw a comment that something like five-sixths of human history can be said to reside there (something like 11000 BCE to our 2000 CE) but we know remarkably little of the details of their lives -- we presume (maybe correctly?) just what you said -- 'get up, make the bed, eat, drink, work, have some sex, listen to some music, go to bed, sleep, repeat'.

And that doesn't touch on the statuses of social groups -- women for example. And likely over half of people would have been disadvantaged somehow -- slaves, disabled, elderly(relatively speaking), etc.

It's intimidating when you think about it.

@RichCC I think, don't be too intimidated, the common things can also be the most profoundly beautiful and meaningful, if you only train your appreciation to understand it. At the very least if you do Get up, make the bed, eat, drink, work, have some sex, listen to some music, go to bed, sleep, repeat. then you also by so doing join into a great community, I may not be going to live for millenia but the things that I do and share in doing, are nearly immortal, fundamental things.

Sorry for waxing all woo, there but I think that there is more to that thought than just woo.

@RichCC PS may I quote this please ?

@Fernapple Certainly you can use it however you wish (for what it's worth, ha, ha). Proofread carefully (someone should).

I don't mind being intimidated. In fact, I tell people I'm something of a nihilist -- I see no ultimate beneficial goal for the human race.
But I don't consider myself depressed. There is plenty of beauty and meaning near me to keep me occupied.

Having thought about it, I class myself as similar to the classic Greek Stoics in the vein of Epictetus or Seneca.
If it's something I can affect, I care about it. If it's outside my control, it's not allowed to have any effect on my self -- just my circumstance, if that.

@RichCC Quoted in the Religious Naturalism group.

I'm sure there is.