this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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you cannot learn without pain. you cannot learn without suffering.
sounds like you have a complex with masculinity or something.
While I've had a few hard lessons as a result of stupidity, the vast majority of my learning and training has been an experience of pleasure.
It's fun to fill curiosity, it feels good to use your body.
Yep! The pursuit of other's perception of it led me to a lot of needless suffering in life.
I think you're misconstruing the concept of pain and suffering with traumatic and torturous.
when you are hit, is it not painful? do you not suffer injury? the event, though possibly traumatic, was not the lesson. the lesson is the pain you suffered to not allow yourself to be hit again.
you learn by studying, doing, experiencing. this takes time, effort, willpower. all a drain on your finite resources as a mortal being. just by existing you are suffering, though the pain of existence is something you have grown accustomed to.
when a child learns how to stack blocks for the first time, they suffer through endless trials and errors until they become proficient in it. they suffer emotionally, physically, and yet they persevere. the same child as an adult attempts to stack something else. they suffered to learn that ability though they may not remember it, the lesson still remains.
the point is, you did experience pain and suffering to learn what know are today. you continue to suffer today, even though the pain is unrecognizable to you.
existence itself is suffering, but we distract ourselves from the pain by focusing on the achievements.
every trial is punctuated by the reward at the end, even if the reward is the end of the trial.
This is to grind the concept of enduring pain as to be the mere act of existing. You may be conflating suffering with expending the renewable resource of energy which we replenish nightly.
We suffer growing pains, we suffer depression, we suffer from disease.
I don't see the expression of energy without pain as something that is suffered. Something which gives joy and pleasure is also antithetical to the concept of suffering.
I am not saying we can not suffer and learn at the same time. In fact your example for a child is true. But i disagree that the analogy carries into adolescence and adulthood. I am saying that the vast majority of growth and learning is not contingent on the experience of suffering. That learning and growing can be a joyful and pleasurable experience.
Suffering related to learning and growth is often put there by an external actor: bad coach, bad instructor, unsafe or incorrect method, etc...
It is learned how to experience growth and whether we enjoy learning with or without suffering.