Pain is a Signal
On Pain as a Signal, The Four Doors of Mind, A Poem for the Soul, The Bhagvad Gita and Other Reading Recommendations and What I'm Doing
Welcome to the Twelfth edition of the ‘Read. Learn. Enjoy.’ letter.
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Pain is a Signal
An essay on pain.
Pain is an intense distressing feeling, often caused by an external event. Pain usually carries negative connotations for us, but it shouldn’t.
Why?
Because..
Pain is a signal
What does pain signal?
Pain signals a need to change and grow.
Pain signals an issue in our life that needs resolving. Pain is a symptom, not the cause of the issue.
Types of Pain
Pain can be physical or emotional.
Physical pain signals change is in progress.
Examples - tooth ache while kids are growing permanent teeth, body ache when you are down with a virus, knee pain or back aches as you grow old, or a painful wound after you have hurt yourself.
Our body has evolved over millennia to handle these physical changes through automatic in-built mechanisms (that still continue to evolve).
The signal of pain makes us aware of the physical change in progress and to seek help if required.
Emotional pain signals change is needed.
Examples - losing a loved friend or family member, arguments with family members or at work, losing a source of income, or getting distressed by someone else’s words.
While our bodies have evolved ways to deal with physical pain, our brain is less evolved to deal with emotional pain arising from living in a society with its increasingly complex structures, relationships and interactions.
Hence we often feel lost when faced with emotional pain.
However, like traffic lights, emotional pain is signaling us to take action to address the underlying issue that is the cause of pain.
There is no good or bad pain.
Pain just is.
N. K Jemisin says in her fantasy novel The Fifth Season:
Perhaps you think it wrong that I dwell so much on the horrors, the pain, but pain is what shapes us, after all.
We are creatures born of heat and pressure and grinding, ceaseless movement.
To be still is to be not alive.
Don’t hold on to pain.
Recognize pain as a signal and use it as a constructive input in your journey of growing up.
The Price of Growth
Success has a price. So does growth.
The price of growth is pain.
While learning can be acquired from teachers and books, wisdom is acquired only through pain.
Carl Jung said, “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
For intelligent beings like us, pain is an essential part of growing up.
Be a Stoic. Use the signal from pain to grow and transform yourself.
The Four Doors of Mind
A postcard on the four doors of mind to deal with pain.
While we are on the topic of pain, here’s a relevant excerpt on The Four Doors of Mind from the book The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Perhaps the greatest faculty our minds possess is the ability to cope with pain.
Classic thinking teaches us of the four doors of the mind, which everyone moves through according to their need.
First is the door of sleep. Sleep offers us a retreat from the world and all its pain. Sleep marks passing time, giving us distance from the things that have hurt us. When a person is wounded they will often fall unconscious. Similarly, someone who hears traumatic news will often swoon or faint. This is the mind's way of protecting itself from pain by stepping through the first door.
Second is the door of forgetting. Some wounds are too deep to heal, or too deep to heal quickly. In addition, many memories are simply painful, and there is no healing to be done. The saying 'time heals all wounds' is false. Time heals most wounds. The rest are hidden behind this door.
Third is the door of madness. There are times when the mind is dealt such a blow it hides itself in insanity. While this may not seem beneficial, it is. There are times when reality is nothing but pain, and to escape that pain the mind must leave reality behind.
Last is the door of death. The final resort. Nothing can hurt us after we are dead, or so we have been told.
Patrick writes Fantasy books (Fantasy of The Lord of the Rings type, not the adult one!)
A Poem for the Soul
Poetry is a balm for the soul. So here’s one by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are
those that tell of saddest thought.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
Reading Recommendation
The Bhagvad Gita: A Selection by Ramesh Balsekar
I have been reading on non-duality over the last year or so. This interpretation of The Bhagvad Gita helped me understand the meaning of Krishna's words much better than anything else that I had previously read.
The Basic Understanding chapter extracted from author's book Ripples is must read.
A few thoughts:
On the Basic Principle
THE basic perennial principle behind all religions (before they were corrupted by interpretations and formal rituals) was the same: the existence of a Reality, by whatever name called – Reality, Totality, Consciousness, God or whatever – which never did not exist from the beginning of the human race.
This Reality, which the first human being must have experienced, is the awareness of BEING – I AM – before any thought could have occurred.
On Personal Achievement
If Consciousness (or God) is all that exists and functions through human beings, how can there ever arise the question of “personal” achievement for any human being?
On Your Role
If it is Consciousness which functions through my body, how do I live my life? How do I make decisions which I must make every day? The answer is, in a way, simple. You act as if you are playing a role in the drama of life and living.
You make decisions as and when you have to make them, as if you have the volition to make such decisions – with the deepest conviction that Consciousness has already made those decisions along with their consequences.
The man of understanding does not shirk making decisions.
He thus makes his decision diligently, weighing the various alternatives, but knowing that it is Consciousness (or God) who is the actual functioning element, he does not have a feeling either of pride (if the action is successful) or feeling of failure or guilt (if the action turns out to be unsuccessful).
On Understanding
The man of understanding is not really the man who has “by a lifetime of study and practice accumulated a great fund of virtue and merit”, but the man in whom nature acts without the impediment of personal effort and vanity.
What I’m Doing
What I’m doing now and what’s coming up next.
NOW
Reading 📖
Read a few chapters/pages of the books below:
And lots of Annual Reports and financial statements!
Thinking 🤔
It takes courage to know a stranger's pain.
Writing ✍️
Nothing apart from this newsletter.
NEXT
A hint of what’s coming up in the next few editions.
Book Summary of Charting and Technical Analysis by Fred McAllen.
Book Summary of The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel.
Or may be something entirely different as it happened for the past few weeks. I won’t know it till I sit down to write. The writing process is mysterious.
Thank you for reading till the end!
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Until next week,
- Satyajit
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