I don't think it's possible to associate hardship with greater levels of industry and creativity. If this was true, the people who experience the most problems ought to be the most innovative and proficient in the world. But history has demonstrated that this is much to the contrary. The Russian peasantry spent 300 years in a state of dull backwardness; and they, among all humans, were arguably enduring one of the harshest habitable climates on Earth.

It's our comfort that enables us to devote ourselves to the vast struggle of imagination. Agriculture first had to be developed, and settlements established, before we could organise ourselves into complex systems and societies.

I think it's better to say that our complacency - not our comfort - is what subdues the creative striving within us. It's not because we're comparatively at ease that we give ourselves over to apathy and slothfulness. It's because we think that there's nothing - not in our families, or communities, or in our nations - to compel us to achieve great successes in our lives.

Some people probably have role models, religions, obsessive parents, or a profound attitude of mind, which motivates them to the completion of unlikely tasks. But for most of us, who are born into undistinguished circumstances, there is very little to provoke the spirit. And I just don't think this can be influenced by things like poverty or starvation.