It's not pleasant living a life in discomfort. Whether it's physical pain, hunger, cold, oppression - when one experiences discomfort, the entire being focuses on eliminating its source. I am grateful for having evaded discomfort. Comfort allows one to raise one's thoughts to a higher plane. Your own warm house, clean and tidy, well-lit and functionally furnished, surrounded by garden, mortgage paid off, is - I believe - essential to feeling comfortable. A big car, an executive jet, several houses around the world in prestigious or exotic locations - isn't. That's wallowing in luxury.
Comfort - from the Latin, confortō ('to strengthen greatly'), from con- ('together') + fortis ('strong'). Comfort means contentment, ease (ease in contrast to disease). Luxury - also from the Latin, luxus. Meaning extravagance, luxury, excess, debauchery, pomp, splendor.
Knowing where to draw the line between comfort and luxury is crucial. For the materialist, it's irrelevant - it's just keeping up and showing off that counts. The idea of doing a job you don't like to buy things you don't need to impress people you don't know sits at the foolish heart of materialist consumptionism. This behaviour, multiplied across the world, is harmful both for society and for the environment - it is unsustainable. It is a behaviour that generates waste, currently requiring the resources of a planet-and-half to meet the demand of our one planet.
Finding the balance is crucial. I confess to tending towards the ascetic - I have no desire for exotic holidays or a big new car or indeed any car; my tastes are modest. I buy second-hand clothes wherever I can, walk a lot. When I buy things I look for how long they're likely to last. But I do demand comfort! Even Lenten self-denial has become honed towards bodily self-preservation (red meat, sugar, salt snacks and alcohol in excess tend to shorten life).
But then eating comfortably means eating healthily - I don't save money when it comes to food quality; I save money by buying less and wasting as little as possible.
There's bodily discomfort, and there's aesthetic discomfort. We spend so much time in our homes (especially now during the pandemic) that it behoves us to invest in making them as pleasing to us as possible; the home should be a comfortable - and comforting - place, even on a dreary, damp late-autumn night or when it's sleeting outside on Blue Monday.
The materialist urge to earn more, to make more money, to the point where one can no longer spend it on eliminating discomforts is a sign of mankind's inherent spiritual immaturity. Yes, a reserve, a financial buffer is needed to protect one against potential discomfort that could occur when the wheel of fortune turns against one; but when a billionaire plots to make thousands of employees redundant just to make another billion, and that extra billion isn't reinvested to create new value via R&D but squirrelled away in an offshore tax haven - well, that is morally wrong. Materialism is a dead end to human spiritual evolution. You could see this clearly in the behaviour of the Trump family, exemplars of soulless 'philosophical zombies'.
Even so, comfort in itself can lead to complacency, a feeling of smugness and self-satisfaction. Rather than being a springboard to spiritual growth (which is what it should be), one can instead get used to being comfortable and grow lazy and relax.
Comfort should be judged against any discomfort that distracts focus. Pain is a real discomfort; mental anguish also. The mindful approach to life helps mitigate discomfort; my own drive to keep my body healthy as long as possible is largely driven by a desire to be able to keep expanding the boundaries of my knowledge and spiritual frontiers - which is difficult to do when in chronic pain.
Peace of mind, something offered by religions, is, like physical comfort, a two-edged thing; it's also capable of bringing about complacency and self-satisfaction. When one is aware that a spiritual quest means endless seeking without any immediate hope of finding The Answer, peace of mind becomes chimeric. A restless drive for enlightenment knows no havens of indolence. Keep asking, keep searching.
The old saying, "There's no such thing as an atheist in a lifeboat/foxhole" suggests that cosy, comfortable, safe, well-lit rooms are the place for atheists to hang out, untroubled by thoughts of an imminent demise.
But if not thoughts of an imminent demise - then thoughts of what?
A comfortable place to meditate, to channel Goodness, to think pleasant thoughts, summoning or just receiving unbidden those qualia memories - and to ask those questions that lead to a greater understanding of life's purpose.
And doing so, in prayer - receiving rather than broadcasting, listening rather than babbling.
Tomorrow: On Prayer.
This time last year:
Are the physical and spiritual realms separate or one?
This time two years ago:
Łódź and the Flat White Economy
This time three years ago:
Subatomic physics and Consciousness
This time four years ago:
Lent begins - the Big Questions
This time six years ago:
How does God speak to us?
This time seven years ago:
Spring makes itself felt in Ealing
This time eight years ago:
Waiting for the warmth to return to Warsaw
This time nine years ago:
Remembering Poland's 'Accursed Soldiers'
This time ten years ago:
Getting the balance right between work and play
This time 12 years ago:
Sublime Jeziorki sunset
This time 13 years ago:
Sunrise getting earlier
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