Figuring

by Maria Popova

“Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me.”

Schopenhauer would limn this central paradox of intimacy in the philosophical allegory of the porcupine dilemma: In the cold of winter, a covenant of porcupines huddle together seeking warmth. As they draw close, they begin wounding each other with their quills. Warmed but maimed, they instinctually draw apart, only to find themselves shivering and longing for the heat of other bodies again. Eventually, they discover that unwounding warmth lies in the right span of space—close enough to share in a greater collective temperature, but not so close as to inflict the pricks of proximity.