Pain: The Realest of Emotions

Source: Harvard Health

Today, we dive into the concept of pain and suffering. We will discuss it's concept from a philosophical and a psychological standpoint.

Introduction

Source: Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy

We all have experienced pain in our lives at varying degrees. It can be viewed objectively as a bodily or a mental sensation. For example, a muscle pull or a broken nail tells our brain that a part of our body has been hurt, and this can be viewed as pain.

But pain can also be viewed as an emotion, a feeling, and not something physical or a part of our body. This creates a perception that pain doesn't actually exist physically, and it is rather a made-up concept of our mind to signal damage or sudden change to the body.

There is a thin line between these two concepts, but the apparent philosophical paradox still exists. Our intention here is to just introduce the philosophy of pain, and we will now spend more time in analyzing this emotion/ sensation.

Why is pain important?

Why do we need pain? Isn't the purpose of life to avoid pain and suffering? 

"When you feel pain, you know that you are still alive" -Bruce Lee

Well, for starters, pain is what helps you feel alive. You might be dreaming or might be unconscious when you feel other emotions like pleasure or anger. But pain is something that happens in the moment. For example, when we are sleeping, we suddenly wake up if we feel any sort of pain (it can be a tickle, an itch, or a burning sensation). And that is why it is the realest of emotions. People who inflict self-harm have this thing figured out. Since they are usually unable (or less able) to feel other emotions, they turn to harming themselves just to have that feeling to be alive.

But why do we need pain? - to have a change in your life.

One of the important learnings of Mahabharata (or any religious text for that matter) is that change is the only constant, and that change is something you receive when you pay in terms of pain, and this pain is inevitable.

So pain and change is inevitable. But by choosing our pain, we can choose our change; meaning if we want to have a desirable change in our life, we need to go through pain and suffering to get that change.

Athletes and bodybuilders often work on this philosophy of delayed gratification. They know that if we want to have that muscular body, or that gold medal, we need to experience the pain for it. Pain and sacrifice is at the core of any kind of success or desired change.

Pain is highly valued in concepts like Stoicism and vastly encouraged by philosophers like Nietzsche. It's importance is also highlighted in movies like Fight Club (in the scene where Brad Pitt pours acid on the hand of Edward Norton). 

Not only that, the importance of pain is also described in our culture. This is what the concept of "NO PAIN, NO GAIN" is about. This is also highlighted in sayings like "sona tapkar nikharta hai" which means that even for gold to shine, it needs to be heated.

Pain can be a source of incorrigible knowledge

When we were young, we didn't know things like not to touch fire. One way we were taught these things was our elders instructing us. But many of us still had the curiosity, and it is not until you actually feel the burning sensation when you touch fire that you learn the properties of fire. Neuro-scientifically speaking, when we experience the pain due to the burning sensation, our amygdala gets activated and apart from instructing us to remove our hand from the fire, it also communicates with the hippocampus and tells it to store this memory so that we don't experience the same pain again.

And this sort of applies to all aspects of life. The feeling of pain is what helps us learn what to do and what not to do. This is the source of wisdom that comes with different experiences in life. This concept is also highlighted in the saying: "Failures are pillars of success". Our failures cause us pain which helps us learn what our mistakes were, and how that pain (and failure) can be avoided, and such multiple learnings helps us succeed in life.

Pain helps us discover our true self

Source: Resource Magazine

Apart from the external learnings that we gain through pain and suffering, we also learn a lot about ourselves. One of the best examples for this is exercise. When you start a workout regime, you feel pain since your muscles tear and rebuild themselves, and in this process of pain and gain, you learn things about yourself you never knew. It helps find your authenticity and confidence and also helps you understand your thoughts better. ( Ask any gym-goer, and they will testify to this)

Pain can be your best motivator

"Failure gave me strength. Pain was my motivation" -Michael Jordan

Pain is not only the realest of emotions, but also the best motivator. Athletes and gym-goers understand this very well. It is only when your body pains that you know your workout was successful. It is that pain that tells you your body is changing, and that you are on the right path. And hence, pain becomes the best of motivators.
This can also be applied to studying. It is only when you feel exhausted that you know you have had a good study session. And then this same pain that you would want to avoid, becomes your source of satisfaction and motivation to work more.

The fear of pain

Much like how the anticipation of pleasure makes us more happier than the pleasure itself, the fear of pain is actually more painful than the pain itself. And this fear of pain comes from the fear of death. And we avoid pain because in a way, we feel that pain might result in death and we would want to avoid death at all costs since that would end our existence. This results in a paradox.

Even though pain is the realest of emotions, it makes us feel alive, our mind perceives it as a precursor to death and hence wants to avoid it. The way stoicism deals with this is that they accept death. This means they know and have understood the fact that death is inevitable. And it is this acceptance by which they beat the fear of pain. It is this acceptance which lets them embrace the pain, because it can be traded off for a desirable change or the feeling of being alive.

Conclusion

You will experience pain in life how much ever you try to avoid it, because that's how life works. So if pain is inevitable, then why not choose your pain. Why not consciously choose that hard workout, choose to run that extra mile, choose that hard-to-read book, because that's how the changes in life are going to come.

You know no one is going to serve you what you need in a gold platter, you know you will need to work for it. You know you need to pay in terms of the pain, the suffering, and the sacrifice to achieve your desired goal. So what are you waiting for?

I say befriend your pain, as it can be the best guide in your life.

Written and Edited by: Yash Jayesh Doshi