No Pain, No Gain
Free Jim and Free Will on Pleasure, Pain and Motives Behind Actions
Free Will: All you are doing is making a simple calculation. The way you see it, the future profit simply justifies this hard work, this "suffering" in the present. The bottom line is that it is clear to you that you will enjoy in the end; that you will profit, and the "pain" in the meantime is worth the future pleasure.
Free Jim: Yeah, that's obvious I guess.
Free Will: So now answer this: in what way are we different from animals? We both just chase after pleasures all the time, and run away from pains. The only difference is that we can decide with regard to a future profit, and agree to suffer in the present under the calculation that it will be worthwhile for a future reward.
Free Jim: Hmmm...Wait. I was about to agree with you, but then I just remembered how I saw this documentary the other night about masochism, its history, philosophers talking about it and everything. So masochists are people who choose to suffer, and there's no future reward or anything. Some of the documentary was actually pretty disturbing, but the thing I couldn't wrap my mind around then, and which doesn't fit in with what you're saying now, is that they choose to suffer, to be an object of suffering, and that's it. This example might be a bit of an extreme one, but it contradicts what you're saying.
Free Will: No it's the same.
Free Jim: What are you talking about!? They choose to suffer! Don't you get it? They've found a way out of the system you're talking about!
Free Will: Why do they choose to suffer?
Free Jim: They all had different reasons. Some do it simply because they enjoy it; some do it for artistic reasons, some for philosophical reasons, some even thought of it as a spiritual thing to do, and some said this stuff about how they use it as a way to justify living in the modern world.
Free Will: But the basis of the decision is no different to any of our decisions for anything we do in life: They choose to do it because they see it as the most achievable thing for them to do in that moment, the same way we're talking now for the reason that we can't think of anything better to do for the moment. They cannot see anything better to do, so just like everyone else, they calculate pleasure received over the pain taken to receive it, and come up with the result that "choosing to suffer" is actually the most pleasurable, achievable thing for them to do at that time.
...To be continued in "We Have No Free Will"
Related Material:
- Kabbalah.info - all concepts presented in this article were learned from the free materials and resources available at the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education and Research Institute - www.kabbalah.info
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