i come from a puritan background, an meaning hundreds of years ago. But the tradition in new england kind of gets handed down and it shares certain things with jewish tradition. Judism doesn't have that as richly as somestrats of other religions, but there's a strain like that. It's not as simple as to say, yeu, no, pleasure and pain, because those things can be very much or tied together. access and sacrifice can can be tied together in different ways.
Author Amor Towles talks about his book, A Gentleman in Moscow, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Along the way they discuss the craft of writing, the wellsprings of persistence, and Towles's reading habits.