the first law of askesis
It is possible to live without vitamins, without air conditioning, without an ontological proof of God; without chocolate, light or dark; without health insurance or the Bill of Rights; without the concept of limit; without mahogany; without offset printing, taxonomy, geese, any theorems at all; without the live bacteria in your yogurt; without élan or isthmuses or twilight or Motown or those certain shades of blue; without the friction coefficient of bare skin; without the reciprocation of another human breath, any night, any night at all.