Our Capacity to Adapt - a Blessing or a Curse?

Mid-morning: Lots of thoughts on this topic today. I am reserving this space and title for input during spare moments over the course of the day.
Early evening: What prompted this inquiry was yet another spell of rough weather which almost prevented wildflower photography today. Then I saw the many roadside wildflowers that simply closed their petals to wait it out. Others stayed open, even though looking a bit battered. Still others had all their petals knocked off by corn snow and sleet, but I knew from experience that they would soon produce new ones and spring would begin anew. I saw lots of dandelions, many of which sent up stems 12" or more before blooming, while the ones on regularly-mowed lawns "learn" to bloom below the blades on very short stems. Compared to the wide range of harsh conditions the flowers endured [not to mention the many bugs and microorganisms I didn't see] I felt a bit embarrassed by my desire to stay inside my heated car. Also, I remembered back at my overly-heated, thermostatically-controlled office which was only comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. I had promised someone I'd send in some new photos today, so I got out and braved the windy, snowy weather at the first sign of color at the side of the road.
The top photo here, I believe, is Phacelia, and it doesn't look any worse for the wear, even though I took this shot in a pouring rain while protecting my camera with my jacket over my head and it. They were flowering all over the hillside and seemed unbothered by the weather.
A little further along I spotted a great crop of newly-bloomed Indian Rhubarb in a roadside
ditch. I drive by this spot twice a week and had not noticed that they were about to bloom since the closed up sepals are greenish brown and blended well into the surroundings. This is quite a spectacular bunch of flowers to arrive all at once at the tops of their 2-3' long stems. This plant puts on another show in the fall, of course, when its large, umbrella-like leaves turn many shades of bright red and orange. In fact, one of its many common names is umbrella plant.
My last stop, before the storm intensified beyond my ability to protect my camera, was on a side road called Old Highway, where I saw this white lily. At first glance, I thought it was Death Camas, but it might be Tofieldia. I can't tell for sure from the pictures, taken in poor light, but it was still impressive. I'll go back this Saturday, which is expected to be sunny, and identify it properly.
When I got home, I returned to my original theme, adaptation, and thought about light bulbs. For a couple of millions of years we evolved as diurnal creatures who paid attention to sunrise, sunset, moon phases, etc., and we "put up with" a wide range of temperatures and other physical conditions. Now, we ignore nature's cycles, read and do most everything else by artificial lighting, and insist on maintaining our incubators within a few degrees of "room temperature." During those millions of years we also wandered a lot in search of food and shelter. We learned to be alert to predators as well as to potential foods. Now we teach our kids from an early age to "adapt" to sitting in hard chairs for up to six hours a day to learn things that we think are necessary for their well-being. I think this does a great deal of harm. I keep meeting kids who know about killer whales, the Amazonian rain forest, and large animals of the African plains, but don't know much of anything about the commonest animals and plants that grow wild in their vicinity. If their classrooms or homes should drop down to 65 degrees of below, the idea of putting on a sweater is a great imposition and the heat must be turned up! If the temperature drifts much above 72 degrees, they must turn on the AC. At what cost? Not only to the environment, but to their inner sense of adaptability.
I'm not sure why I feel this way, but perhaps I was just lucky that my folks always had three acres or so of mostly forested land, and my brother and I learned at an early age the thrill of climbing a tall tree during a windstorm and taking a great ride. Although I got to drive a car in high school, I stayed in love with my bicycle and took long, bicycle camping trips. When I did drive more than an hour away from town it was usually to a place where I could climb mountains or explore windy beaches. One of the most thrilling places I've ever been - and I've gone there over a dozen times - was the summit of Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. It advertised itself on all trail signs at tree line as having the "worst weather in America; many have dies here" and "at the first sign of bad weather, turn back." My brother and I always went prepared, or so we thought, and we seldom turned back. It was a real thrill to start out at base camp, around 1,500' in hot, sunny weather, and, a couple of hours later, encounter freezing temperatures at tree line, around 4,500', then fight hail, snow, and 70 mph winds as we approached the summit at a little over 6,200'. On one occasion the freezing fog was so dense we could barely see from one cairn to the next when they were only 10 -20 feet apart along the trail. Somehow, experiences like that built into me the sense that I should tolerate, even enjoy, extremes of weather, and maintain the kinds of skills one needs for backpacking as a matter of principle. I thank the wildflowers I saw today for reminding me of these things.