Cone Man cone-siders the contradiction of "comfort"

Having re-constructed his cone box on the Day of Weeping Water, Cone Man continued working on the more difficult and important project of reconstructing himself. Sadly, there was no "silver bullet" - exercise without dieting required massive exertion, while dieting without exercise left a man unfit and pathetic.

Life and history were full of strange contradictions, Cone Man mused. Robespierre reflected  in May 1794 that "Terror without virtue is murderous, virtue without terror is powerless." Balancing contradictory extremes is, sadly, no game for fools and fanatics. Robespierre unbalanced the relationship between virtue and terror in June 1794 by passing a law authorising the execution of anybody by virtue of nothing more than a majority vote in the French National Assembly. As Robespierre had already engineered the mass execution of Girondist and Hebertist deputies in March and April of that year, the surviving members of the French National Assembly understandably lived in terror of who would be next.

Bravery, ironically, is not the absence of fear, but the ability to function when you are terrified, and the deputies found they had the virtues of courage and decisiveness. At least, they had these virtues for as long as it took to use the same law to dispose of Robespierre and over 90 of his followers, after which they repealed the law a few days later.

Health, unfortunately, is not the absence of discomfort, but the ability to keep exercising and dieting even when you would rather rest and eat more. Reluctantly Cone Man mounted the saddle of his iron horse for yet another training ride up to the top of the Hill of the Gods (the gods were never actually named, listed or described, but some marketing officer must have thought the name sounded kind of cool).

The word "comfort" originally meant to "strengthen" (com - with; fort - strength) and not leisure and luxury as it does in modern parlance. Cone Man sadly reflected that if he was to succeed in strengthening his legs and torso, he would have to hold his personal "comfort" in contempt.