You speak from my heart.
Yes, Huxley's version of a brave new world applies for western societies whereas Orwells does more so with other countries under different regimes in one way or the other. Your analysis is for me an attempt to get a grasp on complexity.
Convenience is really a problem. Humans have a very natural tendency to solve problems. That is one of man's great strengths. In our modern societies, we are constantly identifying problems and looking for methods and applications that eliminate or permanently resolve a previous problem. Since we never reach the final state of the art, but rather raise a new problem with what has been solved, we are constantly working on new solutions. Now, however, we have somehow lost the sense in it, because one could actually say: problem solved! We are able to build aircraft and operate airports, we have built up a gigantic transport network. The old problem of being tied to a place and therefore also to time is no longer there (apart from the fact that this could not have been regarded as a problem at all). But now a new problem arises: How do we manage to counter this speed? I would say that the entertainment industry is only one side of the coin. The other side is the constant being driven and the search for new problems, triggered by the division and subdivision of any specialization. New things are constantly being researched outside the convenience zone in order to bring them back into it. It is a state between total inertia and total tension. Boredom and stress are responsible for the famous burnout.
What you're talking about is about external supplies, right? I don't have a food problem, nor do I miss a roof over my head. I therefore need a meaningful activity that only seems meaningful if I make a certain effort to experience a process in its entire added value. Here our will to create comes out again and again. If I can't experience it and feel worthless and useless, I'm threatened with great tiredness. This makes me the consumer of the convenience offers. Every machine and apparatus that saves me physical and mental energy and thus creates a gap forces me to fill this gap with something.
That's why I don't have a coffee machine, dish-washer, microwave, stick mixer or TV anymore. I don't drive a car but a bicycle and sometimes I deliberately go shopping on foot to carry my bags home, which gives me some trouble. I have decided not to board any more planes, which prevents me from travelling to distant countries. I grind the coffee with an old-fashioned wooden grinder and mix the pancake dough manually. I actually enjoy those things
For example, my parents used to buy a whole half of a pork from a farmer and then laboriously cut it into its individual parts, turn it through the mincer, cut fillets, make aspic and so on. They cultivated fruit and vegetables in their garden for self-sufficiency.
I'm trying not to get too comfortable in my life. Admittedly, I spend more time thinking than doing physical activities. I think this is a performance of adaptation that people in modern societies achieve because they see that cognitive performance is valued higher than peasant performance. We are all consciously or unconsciously aware that progress is something very powerful that we follow more than we question.
The deep-rooted work ethic you speak of is both a curse and a blessing. We always produce and invent more than we actually need and the existence as consumer and not as creator is a very sad one. I think that these two poles reflect each other very effectively. The more we consume, the more we want to create.
If sport or being active is merely an end in itself, then this also has no particular meaning. Through physical activity in sports no food is created and no house is built with one's own hands. It is therefore only a kind of health care, but one will probably unconsciously ask oneself: What should I keep my body fit for if it is only used for thinking? Although I think you still need exercise.
From what I think - old fashioned - that feeding ourselves with home grown food, curing diseases with home made medicine and also with socio-cultural nutrition is a deep longing.
May I ask you, where do you get this nutrition from personally?
Sorry for this long comment, but you touched a sensitive point.
All the best!
You mean socio-cultural nutrition?
yes.