STAGES WITHIN STAGES
There are so many painful and pleasurable experiences offered by life.
So how to choose?  What a question, as if the answer isn't obvious.

Or is it? The natural instinct, the psychological "normal" favors selecting pleasurable experiences. But in fact this may not be good for us. It appears natural to choose the no-pain option but everything in life seems to model "no pain, no gain." So are we ensuring no gain by accepting the easy no pain way? Should we choose the painful way because that's the way to gain?

Even when working with the sacred plant medicines, and especially during the integration process, the popular vibe always stresses doing the hard work, facing our worst fears, going into the pain, taking the most difficult shamanic journey through the underworld -- in order to gain, in order to heal.

"No Pain - No Gain!"
So choose pain?
So many aphorisms say so --

- the pain you feel today is the strength you feel tomorrow
- sometimes we need to be hurt in order to grow. we must lose in order to gain. sometimes, some lessons are learned best through pain
- everyone wants happiness, no one wants pain - but you can't have a rainbow without a little rain
- you've got to go through the worst times in life to get the best
- endure the pain, enjoy the gain
- life's a climb but the view is great
- struggle today, strength tomorrow
- it's not going to be easy, but it's going to be worth it
- no goal was ever met without a little sweat
- it hurts now but one day it'll be your warmup
- no struggle, no progress
- it's supposed to hurt
- sometimes it takes the worst pain to bring about the best change
- the truth is like surgery, it hurts but cures. a lie is a pain killer, with instant relief but side effects forever
- sometimes we have to be broken to awaken the greatness within
- your best teacher is your last mistake
- if it's not hurting it's not working
- great things never came from comfort zones
- it is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. where you stumble, there lies your treasure. - joseph campbell
- losing is essential to success - the more you lose, the more you want to win
- we either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong - the amount of work is the same - carlos castenada
- do not pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a difficult one - bruce lee
- change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change
- there are two types of pain, one that hurts you and one that changes you
And even Carl Jung said, "There is no coming to consciousness without pain."

How exceptionally odd.
How strange.

What does that say about the whole thing
-- about us, where we are, and all of being itself?
The purpose of this place seems intent upon extracting
meaning and the continually-improved from ongoing pain.
Pain, then, is necessary to achieve something better
(and better is good),
to grow, as they say
(and growth is good).
And we're growing everyday just by being here,
that is unless we don't believe becoming conscious
through experience is growth.

So why should something good be the cause of pain?
What would be so wrong about the way-to-the-good causing pleasure?
Or having the way-to-the-good easy?
Wouldn't they be better inducements for going toward the good?
And should we then assume conversely that something bad causes pleasure?
Or, maybe cynically conclude no matter what we do,
good or bad, we'll get pain?
There isn't much symmetry of dualism in that.

Pleasure is good. Pain is bad.
No, as it turns out. That's wrong.
It's far more complicated than that.
Perhaps, in fact, there is both
good and bad pleasure
and good and bad pain.
But that's a problem
for how does one decide
which pleasure is good or bad
and which pain is good or bad?
Should we ask simply - which one makes our life better
and which one makes our life worse?
But how do we measure better or worse?
By our values?
But what if our values can also be good or bad?
Then it's possible to select the wrong better or worse
from good or bad values.
That's a pickle. And not a sweet one either.
It's part of a drama played out on stages within stages
where we are both actors and audience
and ultimately our best and worst critics,
which is probably what is meant
by the final judgment.