The Inevitability of Adversity, Hardship, and Suffering

I like Epicurus. He has a lot to say about simplicity. Unfortunately, I disagree with his refined hedonism. Epicurus believed that pleasure was the highest good, and that pleasure was the absence of pain. But people endure much pain for other goods. In addition, in seeking pleasure, we often find ourselves in much pain. And I'm not being critical of the crass hedonism of the Cyrenaics. I mean the refined hedonism of Epicurus in particular.

What Epicurus did not know about was the hedonic treadmill. Basically, we all have a set point for happiness. No amount of pleasure or pain can make any lasting impact on that set point. This is why both lottery winners and amputees return to the same level of happiness they had before in six months or so. Epicurus may have discovered this while dying from a kidney stone. We don't know.

Pain is not optional. Conversely, pleasure hits us often as well usually as a consequence of pain. If you have experienced both on a regular basis, you start to see them as essentially meaningless. They don't really matter. I will give two illustrations.

Imagine we have a newly minted Epicurean who believes that the good life is pleasure which is the absence of pain. She goes out and tries to find a pleasant job doing something she enjoys. Since she does not require much money to live on, she gets a job as a floral arranger. She also wants a peaceful life, so she rents a small cabin in the woods. Her life is idyllic and has few problems. But as she lives, she becomes irritated. Her boss has annoying habits that bother her. When at home, the sound of birds chirping drive her crazy. In time, she hates her life as much as she hated it before. She has run into the hedonic treadmill.

For our next example, we have an Army Ranger. He has endured much training to get into the suck known as Afghanistan. He has engaged in firefights, suffered sleeping on the cold ground, gone without food, needs a shower desperately, and spends his days lugging equipment and hoping not to get killed. One night, his buddies and him buy a goat from a local tribesmen. They slaughter the goat, skin it, and cook it on an open fire. As the Ranger eats the meat and washes it down with water from his canteen, he notices it is the best thing he has ever eaten. He looks up at the stars and sees a glorious night sky city dwellers cannot enjoy because of light pollution. He is glad to be alive for one more day and realizes that he has never felt more alive in his whole life.

Our enjoyment or hatred of a particular situation comes not so much from our sensations as our thinking about a situation. As Shakespeare put it, "Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." The pain or pleasure of something comes from our mindset and mentality. This doesn't mean we can think our way out of torture nor does it remove the actual sensation of pain. But the real pain is the loss of happiness. If we consider our happiness to be dependent upon these sensations, then we become unhappy. But we see the lie in this thinking when we see others supremely happy in what we would find intolerable.

It helps to understand the fundamental nature of pleasure and pain. They are tied together. You can't have one without the other. If you indulge pleasure too much, you have pain. If you increase pain, you increase the pleasure when it is removed. This is why water is the sweetest drink ever especially after cutting grass with a push mower on a hot summer day. Neither hedonism nor asceticism get it right. Epicurus tries to eliminate these poles of pleasure and pain by striving for the elimination of pain altogether. I believe you should embrace both.

I think you should seek out hardship and adversity. I think you should suffer. I don't think you should always suffer, but I think you should spend time suffering and enduring but also spend time in comfort and rest. You should take the good with the bad with a heavy tilt towards the bad. What does this look like? It looks like this:



Fans of Pumping Iron are familiar with Arnold's infamous equation of lifting to sex. He enjoyed working out. Yes, it hurt, but there is much pleasure in the "pump." Was Arnold a hedonist or an ascetic in those days? You would have to say that he was both. His manner of training and life was robust and enjoyable.

Arnold's enjoyment of life is a reflection of the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche who said that there was no happiness without hardship. Happiness comes from the challenge and the overcoming. Happiness was like climbing a mountain. You set your objective. You struggle and you climb. You reach the summit and triumph. The payoff is the accomplishment and a glorious view that others can have if they, too, are willing to pay the price.

My own thinking reflects Aristotle in that I find enjoyment in the process as much as the accomplishment. As much as accomplishment might feel great, it is not enough to sustain you. For me, the accomplishment is more of an afterthought. I enjoy getting a paycheck each week, but I really enjoy the work. I find satisfaction in doing the tasks. Being in the state of flow is exhilarating to me. To use the mountain climbing analogy, I enjoy the climbing part more than the summit.

Happiness to me is motion. It is doing. It is not resting or relaxing. It is not stopping. Pain and pleasure are just sensations. To be honest, I don't really notice pain. I notice that I always have some cut, bruise, or what have you on the front of my legs. I don't know where they come from because I don't remember ever getting them. But my job requires me to move around a lot, and I realize that I bash my legs a lot. I don't notice the pain, so I don't remember the injury. When I get a more serious injury, the first thought in my head is how will it affect my work. If I can move, I just keep moving.

This is the beauty of flow. Flow diminishes whatever sucks in your life. Adversity and setbacks just become part of the challenge. They actually become enjoyable in much the same way that harder levels in a video game bring more pleasure. This is because flow is the supreme pleasure. Flow is happiness.

I have learned to shake off shit. The only real displeasure I have in life is when my projects are hampered in some way. I'm OK with rough roads. I really can't stand closed roads. This is also why I chafe against the limitations of time, money, and energy--a constant thing with me.

I am indifferent to pleasure and pain, hardship and suffering. They just don't matter to me. As long as there is flow, I can go on and on and on forever. Happiness is arriving at a state in your life that you would want to remain in for eternity.

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