How to never suffer again.
The art of being anti-fragile
Pain is part of our everyday life.
It’s everywhere. You can’t escape it, no matter how hard you try. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, how charismatic you are, how handsome you are, how many gadgets you own, how many people you control or how big your army of hamsters are. Pain is simply a part of the human existence. And so, the faster you come to terms with pain, the faster you get to where you want to go (and start living).
I used to think life was all about minimizing the amount of pain experienced on a daily basis. That probably meant getting insanely rich so that you could afford a legion of butlers to do your every bidding. Because a pain-free existence should feel like paradise, no? Without pain, you get to fill every waking moment with high-octane dopamine and unending pleasure.
But when you really think about, not only does a hedonistic life eventually lead to even more pain, it’s also literally physically impossible.
It leads to even more pain
because of what I call the Impossible Yacht Paradox. At some point in time, the yacht you need built to sustain the lifestyle you wish to enjoy is going to be physically impossible to build because it literally won’t fit on this f*cking planet. And then you’ll be back to square one except you now have even more shit to worry about like “are people going to kidnap my family members” or “why can’t the local pelicans stop shitting on my fancy polished decks.” Now you’re going to have to hire a bunch of body guards and an army of pooper scoopers. The logistics are going to be a nightmare.
That’s the hedonic treadmill talking, a concept we’ve talked about before. The hedonic treadmill is going to eventually numb you to everything you own.
If it wasn’t apparent already, replace the yacht in this analogy with anything you may be striving for. Perhaps a harem of concubines? Or an enslaved AI superbeing that only answers to you?
A life devoid of pain is also physically impossible
because of the simple fact that we are all going to get old and well, die. No one can escape the inevitable pain that comes from getting old and realizing you are one day going to be eaten by worms.
In fact, the longer you live, the more problems and pains you get to accumulate (and in the most random of places too). These pains are also cumulative. Yay! Creaky inflammed rheumatic joints on top of chronic debilitating sciatica on top of fiery gout-filled toes on top of constant burning urination from a catheter shoved up your urethra to bypass your enlarged prostate. How fun.
See highly scientific graph below.
Even Jeff Bezos, who apparently makes 8 million per hour, does not get to live a pain-free existence. Some of his pains are certainly of a different caliber than ours (ah, should I ask Alfred to cook me Kobe beef on my way to France tonight or would I rather eat lightly grilled sturgeon?) but even he feels the same pains we commoners feel.
His ass will still itch from the hemorrhoids he gets from the thousands of people likely trying to kiss his ass every day (despite the honey-dipped eucalyptus leaves he uses to wipe)
His cells will still mutate into horrible cancers at the same rate as ours do.
His paper cuts will still burn like a motherf*cker
Instead of living a life trying to reduce the amount of pain you feel (a task akin to trying to rescue a flooding Titanic with a single tiny red bucket), why not train yourself to be strong enough to handle any pain life throws at you instead?
This is the concept of being anti-fragile.
How do you become anti-fragile?