My asthma suddenly became much worse when I returned to Connecticut from Miami. I went outside to get the mail one morning and I saw a cloud of dust enveloping the construction site across the street; standing there hacking, I got to figuring the construction project might be making me sick. To test the theory, I rented an airbnb for the weekend in a rural town about 2 hours north of my house. I got to the rental and the place was so dirty and dusty it was worsening my already aggravated asthma. As I lay awake, struggling to breathe, I considered the deep discomfort of my situation.

It dawned on me that I am always seeking comfort, but I am continually uncomfortable. The evidence is abundant from my travels: How often are the beds bad? The rooms dirty or dusty, or noisy? The service poor? I have taken to carrying a camping bed, pillow, sheets and an air purifier because rooms are so bad so often.

The reality is that I was born into a world that is innately uncomfortable; it is here – in a fundamentally uncomfortable world – that I foolishly seek comfort. How do I know it is innately uncomfortable? Hunger, which is uncomfortable, is the baseline state. I can work (also uncomfortable) to relieve it temporarily, but it always returns. The nature of this body is to suffer discomfort — left alone long enough it always comes to an uncomfortable state. Still too long hurts. No food, no sleep too long hurts. Insufficient temperature regulation hurts. Any state of total inaction, any pause in the continual process of making accommodations to this body to increase its comfort, means discomfort will set-in. Discomfort is the native state.

On some level, humans have known this since time immemorial, we are continually trying to modify our body or our environment to increase comfort. To solve the baseline of discomfort. Why did we build shelter? To relieve discomforts of living outside. Why build a toilet? To relieve the discomfort of squatting to poop. Why did we create beds? To relieve the discomfort of sleeping on the ground. Spices/salt? To relieve the discomfort of food that tastes spoiled.

Of course, some places are more comfortable than others — some hotels, homes or environments are better than others, but they still exist on the scale of discomfort, simply a few notches above my current apartment or the dusty airbnb. And left alone long enough, these places too will become more uncomfortable, dirt accumulates, beds become flat, décor goes out of style. My apartment that used to be an escape from the discomforts of NY, now has a massive construction project out front that makes me deeply pained: Just a small change in circumstances and my heaven, my relatively comfortable place, can become a hell state. Why? Because the nature of this world, of my experiencing it in a body, is discomfort –  time will always reveal that innate nature to us if we somehow we are foolish enough to have missed it to begin with.