The environment that we are in affects our affinity towards pleasurable positives being experienced, or not. It can be positive, negative, or neither as a neutral. There is no requirement to be always in a positive emotional state. But we can get attached to wanting and seeking out being in positive or pleasurable states, in positive environments that give us pleasurable experience.

Pleasure Trap

Being in a constant positive place (be it externally or internally) is not our natural affinity or tendency. We prefer the positive and pleasure, and seek it out, but it isn't necessary to desire so much. Pleasure is a part of life, not the purpose.

When we focus on pleasure attainment it can overtake our perspective and philosophy of life. As a result, people are seeking to place themselves in situations at work, at home, with friends, in conversations, where they get pleasurable experiences from their environment, and run from experiencing suffering or pain. Pain should be avoided indeed, but pleasure and pain happen in life and sometimes it's necessary to be in displeasure or pain/suffering of some kind in order to learn how to not create that into reality.

Pain

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We generally seek physical pleasure and avoid physical pain as consciousness beings. That comes from a basic bio-natural survival feature that is built into animal life. Physical pleasure is always desirable over pain. Pain or dislike/unease in one of our senses indicates something undesirable or wrong, such as a forthcoming potential injury, or an already existing one. Loud sounds, feeling heat, seeing flames, can all indicate a potential danger ahead to avoid, while actually feeling the pain of a burn or damaged ear indicates you have sustained damage. Knowing about pain can help to avoid more of it in the future.

But what about psychological pain that comes from hearing things we don't want to hear? Sometimes the truth hurts, and we need to hear it in order to progress and grow as a society, and also as individuals.

Escapism

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People will accept and embrace situations where they get to be free from pain or suffering. Situations that take them away from this pain-free zone (like hard truths that hurt psychologically) are rejected and denied. When speaking about reality's negative aspects like the horror, wrong, immorality and evil going on, many people are averse to hearing it because it takes them away from their feel-good pursuit of happiness that they value so much in their life. This limits their perception, conception, understanding and ability to navigate reality more optimally by being able to change it.

Fear of the "negative" truth and reality -- that would "bring them down" from their state of happiness -- limits their potential for self-improvement as well. Living in a positivity mask with rosy-colored glasses only degrades accurate perceptual acuity, both with our eyes and with our minds.

The subjective is not aligned with the objective. That's not living in actual reality as it is. Accepting a falsity creates an unreality, an illusion, and then you live in that false perception, masked over true reality. It's a twilight zone.

Our actions are being driven by the pursuit of happiness. Don't worry, just be happy... ignorance is bliss, right? Who needs higher ideals to focus on, like truth? As long as your happy, that's what matters most. Go have fun. Live is short. Etc. If you ignore how you create negative consequences, or if you ignore how negatives are being created into the world, so what... Personal pleasure drives us a lot, matters more, and justifies so much of what we do, to excuse us and allow us to keep doing it with disregard for the larger picture.

Driven by Truth

But, what if we were driven by something else? What if we pursued truth instead above pleasure?

Many people want to stop talking about uncomfortable things that matter, or issues in the world we can come together to do something about. Propel avoid controversy and conflict. They want to keep the feel-good inner state, and the feel-good positive connection between themselves and others. For to argue valid positions, and engage in that conflict of opposing sides, is to risk losing a relationship built on ignoring anything deemed "negative". Real relationships are built on the strength and integrity of truth that is shared in common to build a solid foundation in alignment with reality.

The truth is a higher valuation to consider and focus on. We will automatically attain happiness for ourselves and others as we pursue truth in our lives. Both the knowledge of what is true and false, as well as the knowledge of what is a better and right way to live. Truth is synonymous with existence and reality. Gaining quality truth that will affect our condition and quality of life matters.

As our quality and condition of life increases, that environmental condition will automatically affect a general increase in our overall state of well-being. But right now, there is some serious shit to deal with, and we need to face a lot of negative crap going on, not ignore or seek to escape from it by focusing on achievement of that which is felt as positive or pleasurable.

We can accept that life has it's ups and downs, it's good and bad, it's pleasure and pain. Attaching ourselves to a polarized fixed state of being is doable, but is it required? Is it that beneficial?

As long as one is not avoiding, ignoring or denying the problem around them and in themselves, then I guess it's not much of an issue. But the feel-good pleasure trap is an easy escapism and coping tool for dealing with the sickness of society that few bare to look at, but is nonetheless recognized at an unconscious level. Many feel a sense of something being wrong, something isn't right, but can't put there finger on it. That's the deep core affinity for truth trying to speak through our subconscious and unconscious awareness.

Listen to the Negative

"Human sickness is so severe that few can bear to look at it. But those who do will become well.
- Vernon Howard"

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We have to be willing to be affected by reality, and feel worry, anxiety, discomfort, insecurity, doubt, and fear. Emotions are signals. They tell us either something is wrong with our perception of reality that needs to be corrected, or something is wrong with the human reality we have created that needs to be corrected.

I have long suspected much depression is a misalignment of our internal perception of how we expect, want, wish and desire reality to be, contrasted with how it actually is. This misaligned fracture is not accepted and corrected, and then shocks one to their foundations and cracks their worldview and self-view, often reducing their self-worth and valuations. We are so attached to ourselves and our sense of self that when we lose part of our understanding of something it can affect our identity greatly. Breaking the integrity we had leaves us in crumbles and lost and depressed.

Objective detachmentcan help us get over ourselves in terms of our attachment and focus on how we want and desire to feel. This allows us to honestly face the truth no matter how much it contradicts and conflicts with our perception of reality, or of ourselves, that may be false. We can be more secure with being insecure. We can be more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Recognize the signals, and learn what they are saying to improve ourselves and the world.

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Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.

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