“If we are to be fully human, fully alive and aware, it seems
that we must willing to suffer for our pleasures. Without such
willingness, there can be no growth in the intensity of
consciousness... To strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain
is in effect to strive for the loss of consciousness.” - Alan
Watts. 20th century philosopher Alan Watts referred
to this principle as the backwards law or law of reverse effort, which proposes the
idea that the more one tries to remove or escape the negative experience of life, the
more negative the negative becomes. Rather, the more one faces it willingly and intentionally,
the stronger and more equipped they become, and the more meaningful and positive the pain
and hardship can become. Like gears, we are propelled by the revolving
and ceaseless relationship between positive and negative
experience. In fighting against their rotation, wanting happiness
or pleasure all the time, willing to do anything to hold
onto it or have more of it; in this, we only serve to jam
up the gears. Of course there are exceptions to this. There
are forms of pain and suffering and misery completely overdrawn
by our evolutionary ancestors, indebted to the unluckier
among us in greater, worse, and malformed doses. Forms
of depression and anxiety. Fear and overwhelm. Illness and poverty
that are too far over the edge to be compensated by mere
acceptance, mental stamina, or philosophical discourse, without
additional help, and this is important to bear in mind here.
However, beyond this area of exceptional misery, there still
exists a realm of suffering and unhappiness entrenched in the
condition of human life that appears to be unshakeable, even
when one’s circumstances are relatively good. The realm that
draws the healthy, decent, prosperous person to self-hatred and
self-sabotage. To suicide and addiction. The realm that strums
the guilt of misery in the background of any and every moment
that should be enjoyed simply and happily, but isn’t. The mental
pain, not specific to any of us, but applicable to us all.
There is a struggle we each carry with us into all stages,
and all places, and all conditions of life. Inside us, there is
a baseline of emotional and sensatory experience that we
ceaselessly return to, referred to in psychology as hedonic
adaption or the hedonic treadmill. Because of this baseline,
sometimes things will happen that make us feel extra happy. And
some that will make us feel extra miserable. But as time passes,
in both cases, regardless of any life event, most of us will
return to feeling the same. Some of us have higher thresholds of happiness
and positivity, but those some of us appear to
be the least among
us. Even still, for those with higher thresholds, the
discouraging nature of being ceaselessly destined to return to
the same baseline state, no matter what one does, remains enough
to destroy the spirit if not properly padded with sufficient
consideration and perceptual adjustment. It is not hopeless, though.
If we realize that the bad provides the good. The good
provides the bad. We realize the contrast provides the life.
That our baseline is not something to run from or dread or fight
against, but something to appreciate for its constant renewal of
life. In this, we can perhaps reduce our self-inflicted worsened
misery by reducing our impossible expectation that the sole
purpose to life is happiness, rather then life itself. As a
result, paradoxically it might be a little easier to be a little
happier. The hope for this, however, is not in the
future. It is in this moment. The only moment. In which, exists
the chance to face and accept the gift of negativity and
reduce the pressure on the soul’s need to rid it from everything.
Fore the person who depends his or her existence solely on
their ability to accomplish away the struggle, sadness, and
uncertainty of life, will accomplish the whole world just to be
met with a disappointment so intense, it would destroy
whatever is left of them.
Perhaps then, our quality of life is not found in the
heights of our happiness or pleasures, but in how we choose to
consider and look at what surrounds it. How we attempt to create
a life of personal intention, meaning, and decency, and justify
the inevitable lows, rather than always trying to escape them.
Of course none of this is to make light of how unfathomably
challenging this is. There is temptation that looms every
corner, exploited by nearly every company, every ideal of
culture, every aspect of oneself, constantly alluding to the
sense that this moment is never enough and that there is a
future where everything is perfect, and nothing ever hurts if we
just keep getting a little more of this or doing a little more
of that. However, to quote David Foster Wallace, “If you worship
money and things. If they are where you tap real meaning in
life, then you will never have enough...Worship your own body, and
beauty, and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly...
Worship power and you will end up feeling week and afraid...
Worship your intellect. Being seen as smart. You will end up
feeling stupid. A fraud. Always on the verge of being found
out.” This same principle seems to also apply to
happiness itself. Fore if we worship happiness or pleasure,
we will never feel good enough.
It’s not as if by no longer worshiping happiness or things
or articles of self, we will no longer feel things or want to do
things or want to accomplish things. Even if we wanted to stop
trying or caring, we would not be able to do so easily.
Just like how we don’t have to worship the breath to breathe
or our hair to grow hair to grow hair, we don’t have to worship
happiness or progress to progress and be happy. Like the inhale
and exhale of oxygen in each breath, the positive and negative
flows in and out of us constantly keeping us moving,
progressing, and alive. Only when we hold our breath and try to
keep all the oxygen in, do we suffocate. In every exhale, there is a breath to come,
so long as we keep breathing. In every moment of hardship,
pain, confusion, or weakness, there is a story taking place filled
with the potential for triumph and vitality, worthy
of tears bursting with wonder and fondness for life, so long
as we keep moving. So long as there life in us, there is the rare
and exclusively human opportunity to take this chaotic, thrashing
existence. This strange apparent nothingness, and make
it something. A chance to connect and love and help. A chance
to experience the cosmic everything. And feel. And think. And
live. And at some point, perhaps that can be enough.