So as the question states, should humans experience pain to enjoy pleasure? To put it this way, imagine yourself as a extremely poor person. Someone with not a lot of education, lives paycheck by paycheck living in their dirty home. They have enough money for a movie, (which they can maybe see once a year), and the person says, "The movie was so entertaining I couldn't believe it!" That person is very happy now and maybe will be for quite a while, while he/she tells him/her friends about the crazy movie.
Now take a moderate to rich person who can see a movie maybe two to three times a month. (About 24-36 movies a year). They usually when they walk out, like most people, either bitch about how the movie was too political or it wasn't funny enough, and later go home and continue on with their lives on their $600 dollar HTC Smart Phones which they signed a contract for just to afford it.
Where am I getting at? Well, in theory if someone who experiences more pain and has very little pleasure, they end up enjoying that pleasure to a heightened extent whereas someone who experiences a lot of pleasure without a lot of painful experiences will find life extremely boring and meaningless.
Another great example is us as a nation. We unbelievably complain about the amount of food there is in America. The state of California feeds 1/3 of the world with corn and soy products, that is how much food we really have. There is a lot of
pathos appeal when it comes to the starving child in Africa on the commercials, and yet we still can complain how we are hungry. We go into our pantries full of food to really last us a few months if needed and most people in the world have to literally fight over a bag of rice.
Why should we care? We really don't have to, but it's good to know why we think life is "meh" and boring. Because we experience so much pleasure that we don't even know what pain is.
What do you guys think?
Thanks!
