Hedgehogs huddling for warmth face a problem that isn't really about hedgehogs
Arthur Schopenhauer imagined a group of hedgehogs on a cold night, pressing together for warmth, only to prick each other with their spines the closer they get. Pull apart, and they freeze instead. Is there any way to get the benefit of closeness without the pain that comes with it?
Reveal the answer
Schopenhauer's answer was pessimistic: they settle for a middling distance that leaves everyone a little cold and a little pricked, rather than fully warm or fully safe. He used it as a bleak metaphor for human intimacy itself — real closeness to another person means tolerating some amount of being hurt, and most relationships settle into that same uneasy compromise. (The original German used porcupines; 'hedgehog' stuck in the English translation.)
— Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena — 1851, Volume II, Chapter XXXI
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