Healing Your Past

I saw the following question on a Science Fiction group’s thread:

“If in the future we become totally happy and health and have all the love will we stagnate? And stop developing technology?”

IF we had all the pleasure, and no pain, we would not move. If we had nothing but pain, with no pleasure (or hope thereof) we also would not move. Human behavior is caused by a tension between pain and pleasure. Remove either 100% and you get stagnation.

The “totally” is the key. Because trying to imagine a world without pain OR without pleasure demands extremes that would appear toxic to any observer. What would that be? “Wall-E” type decadence? “Matrix” style somnambulism? Note that the AI said that they created a more perfect world, but our nervous system rejected it. I like that. It feels genuinely perceptive.

When we don’t have enough pain in our lives currently, a dysfunctional person creates drama. A healthy person finds a new challenge, or expands the definition of “self’ to include others, and embraces service.

We can also begin to ask ourselves different questions once we feel safe, looking back into our pasts and looking at the pain. And…healing it.

I had that, with a bully. Back at Alta Loma Elementary school, I did something another boy took exception to. I may have teased a girl he liked: I honestly don’t remember.

But he decided to follow me home, punching me in the stomach all the way. If I tried to cover up, he promised…