Exceptions aside, our experiences can be generally classified into two broad categories – the painful and the pleasurable. All we feel are pain and pleasure, through different means and at varying intensities. Pain is something we tend to avoid, and pleasure is something we try to get more of. We generally consider the two as being opposites of each other.
Recently, over a plate of spicy chaat, I was struck by an anomaly in this classification. Is the taste of chilly a pain or a pleasure. It hurts the tongue for sure, but not too much. And everyone seems to like it that way. So it is a pain that gives us pleasure. We don’t avoid it. We actually stuff our roadside snacks with chilly and then proceed to stuff our mouths with those snacks until we can take it no more and have to get a drink of something cold.
Now consider the feeling of being tickled. It is pure torture. Fingers poke your sides or your armpits and you jump. The experience, when continuous, causes you to double up with laughter. But it is most definitely not pleasurable. I remember being in a state of continuous fright as a kid when around my elder cousins, who were prone to poke me in my side without warning. I went to great lengths to safeguard my ticklish parts.
Why is this so?
I don’t know. But I have a theory (as usual). I think pain and pleasure are essentially the same thing. If a little pain is pleasurable and a lot of pleasure is painful, then it probably stands to reason that we have in-built barriers against states of zero pain and absolute pleasure. Perhaps pain and pleasure are two ends of the same spectrum.
The Buddha succeeded in doing – making pain and pleasure the same. And that supposedly our aim or the purpose of this life so to speak.
Technically, pain *does* induce pleasure. It’s because when you’re in pain, the body releases hormones called endorphins which heighten pleasure. Heck, the whole concept of BDSM is based around that fact. :p
Believing in the theory of pain and pleasure while keeping life in mind actually never exists, its again senses which create a gap between needs and wants or we can say between perception and actuality. Taking life as journey/process does not make one realize this (difference of pain and pleasure) but looking towards life as pieces of destination makes one thirsty and that is how a want happens.
Its actually like highlighting this quote only: “karmanyevadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachan”(Gita).
I appreciate your perspective towards pain and pleasure.Certainly attimes some pain are pleasurable and on the other hand so much of pleasure is painful.
As humans, we are designed to welcome change, welcome new experiences irrespective of whether they are painful or pleasurable. This holds true as long as the experience itself is not something perceived as a threat/harm to our existence.
Tickling, eating chilly, being in a prank – All these are of those category. Where as we don’t want to burn our fingers or cut ourselves repeatedly even though it’s not “very painful” most of the times. Simply because its perceived as a threat/harm to our existence.
Why is this so?: From birth till death we all look to do just ONE thing in life – “continuously confirm our existence to ourself, every single moment”
The only problem is: Our brain has a continuously evolving notion of “Self” & not a fixed, rigid one. At the risk of making it simpler than it is – “Self is simply a collection of all ideas/objects/people that we feel a strong connection to & come to perceive as no different from our physical self”
So as a child: walking, talking, jumping around … everything is a new experience which causes a change in us & the world around us – there by confirming that I exist. Hence we do it. As we grow, our neural circuits also get wired to associate the action (of jumping et al) itself with our notion of “Self”. So the act of jumping is no longer an independent, separate experience but just an extension of my “Self”. And you can’t confirm your existence based on internal inputs only – hence we feel the craving for doing something more… something that we don’t yet understand & don’t yet feel is a part of our definition of “Self”
As we grow older, most of us forget how to get ourselves in new experiences; how to extend & expand our notion of Self through experiences. Hence, we start looking for explanations instead – giving rise to the thirst for “philosophical” thinking. So a thinker tries to confirm his own existence to himself by discovering a new connection (that was not already a part of his definition of “Self”) instead of being part of a new, external experience.
Eat chilly daily so that you start identifying it with your notion of “Self” – it’ll no longer be pleasurable – it’ll just be something that you have to do to not-feel miserable.
Good explanation. But I refuse to eat chillies everyday. I think I would rather just philosophise.