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Most people can easily accept the notion that if you think hard enough……it is impossible to have tall…… without……… having short. That our physical reality exists in a dualistic framework where all forms of measurement exist on a continuum is without too much dispute.
What a lot of people seemingly have a difficult time accepting is that emotions as well as sensations exist on a continuum. Namely where one type of emotion must exist and be experiential the other polar opposite emotion MUST also exist and be experiential. Meaning you cannot have pleasure without pain, and that you cannot have pain without pleasure.
People seem to be under the notion that an eternal pleasurable experience is possible without any reference to pain whatsoever. A state of eternal and sensual bliss. People believe this is possible without giving it too much thought. For surely we have all had painful experiences put also pleasurable experiences, why not have a state where one exists in exclusion to the other. After all you can only really experience pleasure or pain, at any one moment in time and not both simultaneously. So why not choose the better experience of ‘pleasure’ for all eternity, seems plausible and possible doesn’t it?
But, on closer examination that type of logic begins to break down. Pleasure as well as pain while not being quantifiable in terms of measurement is qualitative and thus has properties that can easily be described. Some things are extremely pleasurable (use your imagination), some things are moderately pleasurable, some things are relatively pleasurable, and some things are just ok. On the other hand some things are extremely painful, some things are moderately painful and some things are only mildly painful. As one can easily see the sensations of pleasure and pain exist on a continuum with an almost infinite amount of gradations of ”in-between” states.
The point is that something that is extremely pleasurable can ONLY exist in relation to something that is less pleasurable and thus inherently more painful in terms of spectrum.
If somehow YOU were ABLE to achieve a state where you only EVER felt one very specific grade of pleasure, you would not and could not comprehend any other state of less or more pleasure, or pain for that matter because you have no reference points. Just like a born deaf person who has never been able to hear has no conception of what sound is or a born blind man of what color is. When it comes to measures of sensation, only experience can actually give you an idea of what something is like.
But you might say ok, I can accept that some degree of variance is a necessity in order to sense something and be able to have a distinguished and unique experience about it, but could there not be a state, where you only had various gradations and degrees of pleasure? The important thing to understand here is where your measure of ‘norm’ lies on the spectrum. It is important to understand the greater the spectrum the greater number of possible sensations and feelings are possible. A greater depth and appreciation is attained when you experience all parts of the entire spectrum. If all you ever felt and experience was a little to moderate amount of pleasure of a spectrum, what kind of depth would your experience have? It would pretty shallow, in fact you would be inclined not to think much of the pleasure at all because of how very little variation it has.
For example in other terms think of someone who is literally happy all the time.
Thus diversity in experience and sensation is a true gift in a sense. It expands your horizon of possible experience. Surely you may think you would want to choose an experience where only pleasure was possible, but if you did attain such an experience you would most likely eventually wonder what else was possible in terms of feeling and sensation. It is like every child who has never experienced hot inevitably chooses to get close enough to hot until it becomes uncomfortable (painful) to pull your hand away. The experience even if it only occurs once is required for true understanding. Likewise it comes to life and all the vast emotions that are possible. You can read about joy, sadness, depression, anxiety, contentedness, relaxation, love, happiness and fear all you want but as the blind or the deaf you won’t truly know what it is like to experience a sensation or feeling until you yourself experience it.
And thus we come full circle, pleasure cannot be understood until its counterpart pain is also experienced. All sensations as well as feelings and perceptions occur in a dualistic framework. One cannot exist without the other. Now it is possible is to have an experience of no pleasure and no pain, as if you didn’t have that type of sensory system. But only pleasure and only pain is impossible. Even a moderately painful experience is inherently more pleasurable than an extremely painful experience. Likewise a moderately pleasurable experience is thus more painful and less pleasurable than an extremely pleasurable experience.
As long as gradations of a sensation exist, there will automatically be more pleasurable and less pleasurable sensations. The ‘bar’ or ‘the norm’ may vary from person to person, for what is painful for one person may be pleasurable to another given their experience. Take for example a person who is very, very ill and endures much continuous physical pain. As the person gets incrementally better a new standard is set. At first a small bit of relief is automatically more pleasurable than what was experienced before, and this sets a new standard. That standard may still be very low, but if its all the person has experienced, it will be subjectively high for them.
Imagine a person who is always happy and ahs never experienced pain, how much meaning would their happiness really have? Not much it would be pretty shallow, for meaning is always derived in comparison to something else. If someone brought u flowers everyday for the rest of your life, it may have meaning to you at first but over time you becomes accustomed to it.
In our quick to label society, why like to simplify things by labeling things good or bad. Most people will automatically without much thought label pain as inherently bad and pleasure as inherently good. But this creates a serious problem in terms of perception. For example the pain you feel when touching something extremely hot is actually a really good thing. The sensation of pain lets you know very quickly that something is not right. In those terms it would be wrong to demonize pain as we seemingly so often do, not realizing the benefit we gain from such a sensation. Likewise not all pleasure is necessarily and inherently a good thing. (Need example….drugs!?) As well with emotions. Emotional pain is good in the sense it lets you know there is something disharmonious going about, but even emotional pain is created through perception. It has been said that someone can only inflict suffering on you at once, all subsequent suffering you endure as a result of that incidence is self-inflicted. And thus we even create pain for ourselves on some level seemingly unknowingly.
We like to think of pain as something bad absolutely all the time. But pain is good it’s a feedback mechanism something’s going wrong. If you did not experience pain, you could put your hand on a hot plate, and if you were not looking melt it off or do permanent damage.
Death isn’t always bad either, its important not to demonize the experiences of pain and death. Who gave you that right??
https://www.gestaltreality.com/articles/the-impossibility-of-pleasure-without-pain/