The Benefit of a Painful Reality

@Unicole Unicron

We're told that humans are always seeking freedom from discomfort. Maybe that's true. But the more we seek it, the less we're challenged, and challenge is where our growth lives. It's also where the true human experience lives.

For most of history, discomfort found us whether we wanted it or not. Now technology is starting to offer a way out of almost all of it. So the question in front of us isn't whether we can soften reality. It's how much we should.

Would you wear the glasses?

On my live stream, I asked my chat a question. Imagine a pair of augmented reality glasses that could change everyone's face to look however you wanted. Someone's mean to you? Make them a little evil demon monster. Someone's nice to you? Make them hot, even if they're not. Make everyone look the same, if you want. Would you wear them?

Tova answered right away: no. They said they don't need to augment reality, because it's more important to them to see reality as it is, even if they don't like it.

That last part stuck with me. Even if you don't like it. That's the loaded center of this whole conversation. Seeing reality as it is means accepting the parts that make us uncomfortable.

How is that different from positive thinking?

Here's where I have to be honest with myself. I can't say I look at every ugly aspect of the world. When gore or gruesome videos show up in my feed, I scroll right past. And I already curate how I see the world through manifestation. If I could cultivate a reality that showed me only what I want to see, isn't that close to what I'm already doing?

We all tune things out. Plenty of meat eaters will tell you they don't think about what they're eating, because if they did, they couldn't eat it. That's not a judgment. It's just how human minds protect themselves.

So where's the line between hope and avoidance? Positive thinking stretches you toward something better while you stay in contact with what's real. Avoidance cuts the contact. One expands your reality, and the other edits it down until there's nothing left to grow against. There is a balance, and knowing where it sits is going to matter more and more as technology makes our lives easier and more sedentary.

The slippery slope

I asked my chat one more question: if you could stop aging, only aesthetically, would you? I wouldn't. The visible process of aging is part of the human experience, even when it's uncomfortable or unpleasant or ugly.

But I'll admit that's a slippery slope. If you broke your arm, would you take pain medicine? Of course you would. Nobody thinks you should suffer a broken bone in the name of personal growth.

So this isn't an argument that all pain is good. Some pain teaches us, and some just hurts. The point is to know the difference, and to stop reaching for the numbing option by reflex.

The hidden blessings

Gir-bot shared something beautiful in the chat. Nearing the half-century mark, Gir-bot is embracing the changes in their body. Their metabolism has slowed, but that's made them focus more on taking care of their body and listening to it. That's the hidden blessing inside a discomfort.

I see this in my coaching work all the time. People usually come to me after something major: a death, a crisis, an extreme situation. And that painful reality is often what wakes them up. Reality being a little ugly is part of the process of becoming awakened.

Someone else in chat said that we avoid the fear of death every day. It's true. But every time we hide from aging, loss, or discomfort, we also hide from the awakening it carries.

Growth or sedation

Imagine softening reality until you can't feel any pain, can't see any discomfort, and never age. It sounds good in theory. In practice, it costs us all of our growth.

That future is coming, and much of the technology to build it already exists. So we each have to decide. We have to understand, and learn to lean into, the kind of discomfort that helps us grow. And we have to recognize the kind of technology that just sedates us.

The benefit of a painful reality is that it's real. It's where we stretch, where we wake up, and where we become more human. Don't trade that away for comfort without knowing what you're giving up.