The Value of Being Uncomfortable: Herman Melville on Privation as a Portal to Appreciation and Aliveness

To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself.

Anyone with any degree of mental toughness ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least, Georgia OKeeffe, impoverished and solitary in the desert, wrote in considering limitation, creativity, and setting priorities as she was about to revolutionize art while the world was crumbling into...