Post: #1

Pleasure usually accompanies and hence signifies flourishing like sex to carry on reproduction, food to nourish the body and water to sustain its functioning.

And agony or pain is associated with damage to bodily integrity in form of injuries. Or even the malfunctioning of the mind.

Agony is also associated with the inability to get needs met.

Yet without agony character cannot grow and be able to deal with hardship as well as develop virtues as if giving birth. Muscle cannot take form and definition. Indeed a person bereft of the agony of hardship are unable to deal with reality or even function properly at all.

Silver spooned descendants of great and wealthy men who when it comes to the real world or even a slight deviation from the normality of perfect pleasure break down, throw tantrums or even end up learning cruelty. Like the late Kim Jong Un who bathed in extreme luxury acts more and more erratically when faced with things even slightly not going his way.

Given he had absolute power to execute anyone he wished in his own hermit kingdom have to face an outside world who do not comply with his dictates.

He who is a pale shadow of what his Grandfather was. A spoiled child with nuclear weapons.

People are familiar with spoiled children and how they are trouble even grow up to be evil monsters. Yet this is what happens when a person is awash in pleasure with a minimum of pain and whose expectations of reality conforming to their dictates fail to come to pass.

Since the function of pleasure is to reward flourishing how then does it not result in flourishing after a certain point?

This brings us to the strange paradox of certain forms of suffering. Take exercise for instance and when one is pushed to the limit result in agony. If pain and agony is supposed to indicate damage how then is the body able to flourish? Yet strangely enough that's exactly what happens as long as you don't push too far.

Same thing with character. Mind senses that the body is in less ideal circumstances which at 1st produces agony yet as the mind adapts a person in a sense grows stronger and is able to deal with it. Agony seems to ensure growth and helps the cultivation of virtues.

Hence why Holy men of history sought hardship through asceticism as a source of spiritual enlightenment as recognition of the schoolmaster that teaches through agony.

What man become tough without suffering. What hero doesn't become great without it? What bodybuilder doesn't build up his perfect physique without it?

What succession of the generations is achieved without it?

Body and mind cries out that its being harmed yet the body and mind becomes all the better as a result.

Why the paradox?

Post: #2

In a nutshell: pleasure is an end; pain is a means to an end.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm

Post: #3

(03-21-2017 11:46 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:  In a nutshell: pleasure is an end; pain is a means to an end.

Trying to run after pleasure one ends up with diminishing returns as the brain adapts to such a stimulus whilst as the same time the body weakens and loses its ability to function over time.

On the other hand embracing suffering reduces its impact and actually increases the experience of pleasure upon fulfillment of human needs. Like how water is so tasty after a day's hard work.

Yet at 1st man is incentivized the shy away from the agony necessary for growth yet when he goes through with it he is all the better off. And man is incentivized at 1st to seek after pleasures which weakens the soul and body.

It seems that pleasure as an end in itself is futile and that only suffering makes pleasure truly worthwhile.

Post: #4

Without going into too much detail, due to internal physical trauma, I have a muscular condition whereby certain muscles can "ping" causing intense and sometimes prolonged agony.

I went to see a specialist a while back who identified that I was tensing up when I got the pain, which made it worse.

I've now learned to embrace it and simply stay relaxed if it occurs. It's barely a blip now.

Post: #5

I have been thinking about this a bit lately. In the lines of what the great Obi Wan KeParacelsus said. Rare does something good every come about without sacrifice and pain. And just like the next guy, I want to get stuff as easily as possible. But sometimes, it seems guys are so pain averse. Wanting to achieve/do xyz but so unwillingly to do the work.

There are great examples on this forum of guys who have achieved what they wanted. And they have been kind enough to share their journey. And none of them have painted their journeys as puppies and daisies.

Post: #6

She claims there were better looking man than her husband, but reality is, that only important thing was money. I would tell her that in these days, we call such women prostitues.

Post: #7

(03-22-2017 07:07 AM)Windom Earle Wrote:  Without going into too much detail, due to internal physical trauma, I have a muscular condition whereby certain muscles can "ping" causing intense and sometimes prolonged agony.

I went to see a specialist a while back who identified that I was tensing up when I got the pain, which made it worse.

I've now learned to embrace it and simply stay relaxed if it occurs. It's barely a blip now.

Jordan Peterson had a talk about how embracing suffering is a necessity and as simply something one has to do. Otherwise it just gets worse:




And that only embracing it actually reduces its impact as one adapts to it. For a similar reason Samurai constantly meditate on death and how they are going to do so that fear of death no longer has the hold on them as it once did.

It makes all the pleasures in life however all the more better. Also this may be an impetus to do right given that all evil can be classified as externalities or forms of social pollution why make it worse by producing your own pollution?

Doing good is attempting to do that opposite.

Post: #8

^^^

i've watched a lot of videos of peterson in the past few days.

do you know what he'd tell to jeshua on the cross?

"sort yourself out, bucko!"

THAT's his problem.

Post: #9

(03-22-2017 08:36 AM)tomzestatlu Wrote:  She claims there were better looking man than her husband, but reality is, that only important thing was money. I would tell her that in these days, we call such women prostitues.

Just noticed I posted in bad thread, sorry! If possible, delete.

Post: #10

Peterson is making some name for himself.

Post: #11

Recently I learnt about rustout, the opposite of burnout. It is a psychological condition brought on by too little stress and challenge in one's life. Bizarrely, a lot of the symptoms are similar to burnout : fatigue, insomnia, lack of emotional drive, body pains...

Human beings evolved in an environment that make them incapable of handling too much comfort in a healthy manner. On the other hand, the human body can't handle too much stress and suffering either. So in life you have to delicately balance stress/suffering with comfort to keep your functioning optimal and your happiness at its best.

It's easier to understand the concept in a graph form:



Another graph, this one emphasizes how having too much (food, time, money, etc) can hurt you:

Post: #12

C.S. Lewis has an excellent book on this topic, "The Problem of Pain" - last I checked there's a free audiobook version on YouTube.

He describes pain as an inevitable consequence of the separation of consciousnesses. If we weren't separated - if we had perfect communication through telepathy - then how would we distinguish ourselves from one-another? Without separation we cannot have intimacy, which requires empathy, which implies pain.

Excessive seeking after pleasure subsumes the self; it's an attempt to have that 'group consciousness' in which the self is eliminated. But in enduring hardship, the self-as-separate-entity strengthens, and thus becoming more capable of feeling empathy for others and is more able to engage in an intimate relationship.

Post: #13

(03-28-2017 05:02 PM)Aurini Wrote:  C.S. Lewis has an excellent book on this topic, "The Problem of Pain" - last I checked there's a free audiobook version on YouTube.

He describes pain as an inevitable consequence of the separation of consciousnesses. If we weren't separated - if we had perfect communication through telepathy - then how would we distinguish ourselves from one-another? Without separation we cannot have intimacy, which requires empathy, which implies pain.

Excessive seeking after pleasure subsumes the self; it's an attempt to have that 'group consciousness' in which the self is eliminated. But in enduring hardship, the self-as-separate-entity strengthens, and thus becoming more capable of feeling empathy for others and is more able to engage in an intimate relationship.

Thanks for this. I will check it out.