The Zero-Sum Pleasure and Pain Game

Socrates, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and in fact most aware people know that pleasure is always accompanied by pain and vice versa.

"What a strange thing that which men call pleasure seems to be, and how astonishing the relation it has with what is thought to be its opposite, namely pain! A man cannot have both at the same time. Yet if he pursues and catches the one, he is almost always bound to catch the other also, like two creatures with one head." Phaedo 60

Have you ever noticed …