i don't know if dean karnazes was the first the say this, but it was the first time i had heard of it: "somewhere along the lines, we have confused comfort with happiness". the corollary is, we have also confused pain with suffering.
how is pain not suffering? and, how is comfort not happiness?
perhaps...
- human beings are remarkably adaptive to comfort. we get used to nice things in no time at all and the happiness neurons stop firing.
- we are not so adaptive to pain, but it can still happen. (perhaps evolutionary speaking pain can be actually detrimental to our actual existence so we don't want to get used to it too easily)
- there is an "externalness" and "internalness" about pain. long periods of duress seem to be remarkably good at separating the two. that is, overriding the pain with the internal mind appears possible.
i don't know what it is - but somehow the ability to activate the "internal mind", perhaps the "true self", or the "buddha/god/choice-of-deity in us", or "elevation" in modern psychology terms, or any of the many descriptions - this is a real good feeling.
