Elizabeth Gilbert on happiness and intimacy as related to Schopenhauer’s porcupine analogy.
The porcupine dilemma is as innate to human experience as breathing is to “living.” The act of allowing people in, allowing someone else to see what’s happening within the closed rooms of one’s heart is sometimes almost terrifyingly impossible and for some of us, it remains one of the heaviest learning experiences of our lives (I am one of these people.) We don’t want to allow our own personal dramas—no matter how big or small—to bleed onto other people because we’re “supposed” to be un-needing picture of self-sufficiency and independence.
Well, big surprise…sometimes we all need a little extra body heat to get through the darkness of our night.
