Understanding Both Sides of Comfort

The idea of comfort is quite relative in this day and age. There exist a number of definitions, which can be sufficient to explain this very abstract, yet intensely physical predisposition we humans crave and desire from the world around us. Creature comforts, comfortable living, having comfortable relationships, comfortable experiences, comfortable sex, a comfortable bed, a comfortable toilet seat; Whatever one’s desires might be, it seems that we humans share a tacit for this universal attempt at finding something which allows us as much physical/psychological enjoyment from the world as possible. We crave this enjoyment so much, that even our own languages subsequently use such a broad ranging, safe, and frankly comfortable word as the impetus for what we desire.

But what about discomfort, and uncomfortableness? The violent urge to turn tail and run from the notion of discomfort is so intense, that just by adding these little negating prefixes to our wonderfully all encompassing (and comfortable) word, we automatically change all the previously incredible, euphoric uncomfortableness we so enjoyed. Un-comfortable experiences, un-comfortable sex, un-comfortable toilet seats. Our predispositions to the creature comforts we so desire, are violently stripped of their wonder so much so that it may, at times, drive us to in-sanity and pain. As human beings we learn how to cope, however a pronounced amount of discomfort in our lives is very difficult and quite daunting to deal with. We might deal with discomfort if we know that the ultimate outcome will bring us more comfort than before, yet living in complete discomfort is something which is so terrifying that even I, sitting in my very comfortable chair, get quite uncomfortable thinking about. 

We somehow forget and fail to realize that the relativity of our comfort is related directly to the environs in which we find ourselves. And that comfort, as we all know, comes from the familiar. Therefore it would seem that in order for one to have a pronounced sense of comfort in their lives they must not only understand the nature of their relationship with every aspect of their environment, they similarly must experience discomfort throughout their lives in order to understand what comfort means. I don’t mean to toot the horn of the puritanical work ethic, but rather I take the much more comfortable approach at viewing the niceties and comforts which I have in my life: 

I need to sleep on an uncomfortable bed to know how a comfortable bed feels, I need to have really awkward and uncomfortable sex to know how good comfortable sex feels, and I need to sit on an uncomfortable toilet seat (or not have one at all) to know what a really nice, electronically heated toilet seat feels like.

All jokes aside, it is a much more fundamental, and even more abstract, notion which is paramount to understanding and feeling the ebb and flow behind the notions of discomfort and comfort, and that notion seems to come from hope. Not hope as in the religious notion of faith, but rather hope with respects to the betterment of one’s situation. Hope in knowledge. Again one is treading on a very fine line between definition and praxis, yet I feel rather comfortable in my assertion that if one understands both sides of a situation, one can do something about them. So if one understands both sides of comfort, one can find a way to improve their natural comfort ability.