Pain and Pleasure: The Cycle of Life
How we trap ourselves in the cycle of chasing pleasure and avoiding pain which leads to suffering
pleasure, pain, growth, suffering, mental health, happiness, sadness
The Cycle
brain (pleasure seeking part): What will give me pleasure?
brain (memory part): Love, food, sex, games..
brain (curious part): Why? 🤔
brain (pleasure seeking part): Because we saw that in the movie and read it in the book last time, and because everyone else wants it..
We have our own understanding of what things would make us happy or sad or feel nothing. Most of the times, such understanding is shaped by the media and the social environment we’ve been exposed to. The types of movies you consume tweaks your brain’s understanding and value system. If you’ve recently watched a movie where the protagonist achieves ultimate happiness when he finally gets to be with the girl he’s had a strong desire for and have worked really hard to prove his love for, you believe that’s what happiness is. Having a strong desire for someone and working hard towards making them a part of your life becomes a primary goal. God forbid, if you fail to achieve it, you feel like a loser who has lost everything and everyone.
What you actually fail at is in noticing that it was not the person you wanted to be with that made you do all that you did to have them in your life, it was your own value system, your own brain, and your own understanding of what you should chase, that made you suffer. There was a perception created in your mind that you need someone in your life to achieve ultimate happiness, and that you aren’t enough without them or on your own. But, this understanding is flawed from the beginning. Its based on a movie (or some other medium) which was scripted by a human who themselves were most likely influenced by their own social environment and media around them. We’re trapped in the fallacy of unwarranted assumptions about what we truly want based on no real self-introspection.
That’s the dogma most people live with in this modern world.
The cycle of pleasure, pain and growth
The Suffering
Buddha tried to put some sense into us relatives of apes:
There are two primary forces: happiness and sadness
We chase happiness (or pleasure) and run away from sadness (or fear). A lack of balance between the two or a bias in preference for one of the two (example, someone who only wants happiness) is going to lead to suffering. That’s the trap or cycle we all live in. To break out, you have to give up your preference of only being happy and embrace sadness just as much. Realize that just like without suffering in harsh winter weather conditions, you can’t really truly appreciate the peaceful and flowering summer days, similarly without experiencing sadness in life, you can’t truly appreciate it when happiness finally knocks on your door.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. Nietzsche
The Solution
Concisely: Give up being a monkey 🐒 What I mean is: give up chasing pleasure.
To break free from the cycle of chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, we need to re-evaluate our self beliefs and readjust them, not according to the social environment we live in or the media or information flowing around us, but on the basis of serious self-introspection and by gaining knowledge and a better understanding from resources that have survived the test of time, like philosophical and religious texts. We need to inculcate what truly matters to us individually and what we’re willing to do and give up for achieving those things in life.
Balance, not happiness
Stop giving happiness so much importance.
As Andrew Tate puts it: “F*ck happiness. I don’t care if I feel happy or sad or tired or whatever, I’ll get up and get going on the stuff that needs to be done regardless of how I feel.”
We focus too much on “being happy.” we’re wired to think and act in a way that leads ultimately to happiness. But in truth, happiness is not everything and shouldn’t be everything. Focus on growth, on struggle, on learning and becoming better. Rest will take care of itself.
We believe achieving that stage in life where we can be happy without worrying about anything is the goal, but in truth no such stage exists.
If being happy is not the goal, then what is? Doing what you are supposed to do and being the best version of yourself.
Even Bhagavad Gita (one of the most renowned religious texts in Hinduism) teaches you this. We’re on this planet to fulfill our duty, our karma and to stay true to our dharma. We shouldn’t give in to our pleasure senses and foolishly go anywhere such pleasures take us. You’re going to stay trapped in the cycle of human life and suffering until you break free from the trap of sinful doing and thinking.
The best teacher in your life is going to be suffering and sadness. They teach you much more than what you’ll ever learn from reading any book or hearing from another person.
Marcus Aurelius also mentions the concept of having multiple deaths in life in his journal Meditations. You leave behind who you are at different stages in your life and embrace the new self. You grow, when you let go.
Conclusion
Keep growing. Keep shining. Embrace suffering, pain and detachment. Be grateful for comfort, peace and happiness, but without being completely dependent or attached to any of these. Be in a constant state of mind where you are aware of what you are doing, why you’re doing it, and how best you should do it. Don’t let yourself fall deep into pleasure seeking. Stay open to re-evaluating your mind’s value systems and beliefs. Let go of what you can’t control, and focus on completing fewer things by giving your best every single day. Lastly, spend most of your mental time in the now, not in future or in the past.
The mind is the most powerful thing in the world. The mind has capabilities that are so unknown, and being able to tap into that is on the other side of suffering. David Goggins
Suggested Further Readings
Can’t Hurt Me: Master your Mind and Defy the Odds -by David Goggins
The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer