Saturday, November 18, 2023
There is a fine line between pain and pleasure. Tickling, for example, might be enjoyable for a bit, but after a while it would become torture. Chocolate is dangerous too. There is something called the bliss point. A soft drink manufacturer discovered it. It’s 14 teaspoons of sugar in one can of soda. One more gram of sugar, and it would be intolerable. The threshold of pleasure, if crossed, becomes pain. This is the root of greed, obesity, obsessions, and addictions.
Pain has a threshold. In torture, the objective is not to cross the point at which pain becomes pleasure. If a victim is tortured enough, the threshold of tolerance is relieved by a giddy loss of consciousness. The body cannot withstand, fear consumes, so the brain flips into a dopamine-induced hallucinogenic state. In many cases the victim simply loses consciousness and goes into a coma, a sweet, dreamy relief.
There is also a fine line between beauty and ugliness. In choral music, if a choir begins to sing too loudly, the blend and balance go out of whack, and their teamwork becomes solo work. The sound splatters offense on the eardrums when the ensemble is lost and the individual is heard.
The ego doesn’t know that pleasure, beauty, and happiness have limits. Why is there such a race for more when more simply becomes less? When you start peaking, your baseline is no longer enough. There’s nothing in the middle, or so the ego thinks. For an addiction, the illusion is that you can be in pleasure forever. But when you come down, pain is pointed. Don’t approach the extremes or you may get stuck in a loop. The middle is where it’s at. It’s quite nice there. It’s more like medium-high once you get the hang of it. Equanimity, joy, and peace hangout together in the middle. Get there if you can.