I have stated in another thread, much of the motivation
of humans lies in the attempt to fulfil our needs…
the need for food, water, shelter, bodily needs
and the psychological needs of love, safety/security,
esteem… much of human existence is driven by these
physical and psychological needs…
but not all needs are driven by the needs of human existence…
A common theme within the psychological and philosophical
community lies in the pleasure and pain concept that has
been around since human beings have begun to walk the earth…
we seek pleasure and avoid pain… the concept is simple enough…
we strive to get pleasure, sex, food, love, creature comforts,
all part of the attempt to gain pleasure of existence…
and avoiding pain is another simple concept… we strive to avoid
pain… physical, mental, psychological pain… The entire concept
of Buddhism is an attempt to avoid pain… avoid the pain of existence,
of suffering, of the pain of disease, of old age, of death…
and in Buddhism for example we can avoid these sufferings by
achieving enlightenment… and thus we are no longer on the
wheel of existence… of being born and reborn again and again and again…
and with every rebirth, we suffer from disease, old age, and finally death…
but there is a problem with this seeking pleasure and avoiding pain…
and I take the avoiding pain part first…
what it takes to be human requires us to suffer pain…
I was an athlete for years… if I were to avoid pain, I wouldn’t
have become an athlete… for I ran track and cross-country…
and in running, we learn to overcome pain… to run faster,
to break our old time, requires us to seek out pain… we must run/train
faster, longer, harder to achieve our goal of improving our goals…
without pain, we cannot advance to our becoming something better…
for example, you have to risk pain to seek out love and friendship
and relationships… the way we reach out and attempt to
achieve our goal of love, companionship, friendship is to risk
the pain of rejection, and rejection is painful… I do know…
but we must risk that pain of rejection if we are to
gain something more important…
if you want to get ahead in life, you have to work for it…
and work is pain… if you want that promotion, you have to work
for it, dedicate time and effort to reach that goal… and any time
you make an effort, that involves pain… to learn to swim…
it takes work and that work can be quite painful…
but if we don’t overcome the pain, we can never learn how to swim…
I have taken long camping trips… and that takes much work…
you have to work to get into shape enough to walk
ten miles uphill with a 30 pound backpack on you…
and you have to actually work on the trail to get anywhere,
going uphill to your destination is hard work… it takes effort…
and that work, that effort is painful… but if you want to reach
the next camping site, you have to work for it…
so the point of existence, isn’t to avoid pain, the point is to
have a goal that makes that pain worth it…
(which part of my critique of capitalism… what one
gains after 40 years of work isn’t worth the effort, the work,
what you gain doesn’t justify all that pain of working 40 years,
a retirement of maybe 10 years… does that justify working for
40 years? I don’t think so)
So what pains of existence are actually worth it?
What pain can we use to motivate us to become better
people/human beings?
Kropotkin