No significant societal gains, either technological, sociological or artistic are being made, or have been made in recent memory. Your culture has remained essentially as it is for generations. Rulers tend to emphasise maintaining the status quo.
Comfortable: This is the middle class of any Culture, regardless of the average wealth of its citizens. These folk usually live in clean, nicely apportioned homes or apartments, often in better neighborhoods. They eat regularly and occasionally very well.
While foraging or hunting for food, you have an encounter with a trapped predatory beast. Instead of slaying it, you free it. The freed beast disappears. Later, you are trapped by a falling log. The same beast reappears, aiding and freeing you.