Should we look at our current apocalyptic moment as an opportunity to learn and shore up our vulnerabilities so that we can survive and thrive in these increasingly apocalyptic times?
A Field Guild To the Apocalypse (2024) by Athena Aktipis
Truly 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.
If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.
For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.
Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.
Chapter 11, Nightgown – Moby Dick by Herman Melville
* Thank you Will Henry for Wallace-the-Brave
