On Pleasure and Pain

Old conditioning...
The root of pleasure and pain
A dancing pole

If pain and pleasure are placed on a continuum, that means my pre-programmed patterns on what they represent and how they can soothe or hurt me are obsolete.

If violence is a pattern, then expecting violence (regardless of it's form) is irrelevant.
If the two are indeed shifting due to the ever-changing character of the world, then newly formed adaptations should come natural.

And if they can’t come natural, that is only due to self-limitations imposed by natural resistance or by complete lack of awareness.

If today I learned pain is something I actively seek because I crave to repeat what I know very well, then I should show neural plasticity. I should take in new perspectives, new experiences, new insights and I should assign a new value to the concept of "pain".
Failing to do so in a certain moment does not equal with failure until the point where action is already being taken.

If pleasure becomes pain (due to unfamiliarity) and pain becomes pleasure (simply because of repetitive cycles of being exposed to it), then new definitions are also possible via the same mechanisms; we can re-learn pleasure via repetitive actions and we can unlearn certain pain by removing it’s associations to real pleasure.

To soothe the soul by stripping it away of what brings pleasure does not equal to death or misery.

A soul derived of pleasure is not a soul in pain.

A soul which you take familiar pleasure from will accept this, as long as there is a purpose, a clear mission that will transcend this pleasure.

In bodybuilding, we take pleasuring foods away in order to reach goals, to compete, to get into the highest visual shape, to sculpt the body through the mind, to show an artwork to the World. Each has their own motivations and ideals that justify why suffering through dieting is purposeful, fulfiling, soothing in itself. That suffering transcends the aparent pleasure of eating good foods. That suffering takes the body, the mind and the soul to new realms of achievement which are not possible otherwise.

It is similar with learned pleasures, like the pleasure for pain. Some may choose to soak in it, some might get overwhelmed by it and find it compelling. Others can choose to strip it away, to replace it with other types of pleasure and to soothe the soul precisely by taking this type of pleasure away and turning it into a mission. (None is right or wrong, to be clear.)

Craving violence (be it peer aggression or simply complete sexual submission) is an old pattern. Once that awareness occurs, we can take it apart, turn it into something greater than itself. We can use it as creative fuel, without looking away from it.

Once you take that craving away, you are free to move, to feel more, to give and receive more. You get a new kind of accomplishment by not letting it suffocate your being.
Once you take that craving away....you’re on your way for a more purposeful life.