It sounds terrible to say, and I know humans can find meaning in any kind of suffering, but if at any moment a viking could pillage your town, or a terrible disease might take your life, or you might starve - why bother with life?

I know I can also die unexpectedly in 2021 as much as I could in Ancient Athens. But now at least there aren't any slave lords outside my city halls. It's very likely I won't die of starvation. Or that my house won't be pillaged. I can get insurance for many things in my life, so financial ruin through a drought or a house fire is unlikely.

Things are safer now than they were before, so it's relatively smart to plan for the future. In Viking era Britain or Renaissance era Italy, life was so uncertain. So I wonder - were people more nihilistic before than now? Were people more likely to "live for the present" and make YOLO decisions just because of how uncertain life was?