Pleasure and Pain
Pleasure and pain are the two forces through which our lives are managed. Our inherent Nature—the desire to enjoy—impels us to follow a predetermined behavioral formula: the desire to receive maximum pleasure for minimum effort. Hence, we are compelled to choose pleasure and flee from pain. In that, there is no difference between us and any other animal.
Psychology recognizes the possibility of changing every person’s priorities. We can be taught to perform different calculations of profitability. It is also possible to extol the future in the eyes of every person so that he or she will agree to experience present ordeals for future gain.
For example, we are willing to make tremendous efforts in schooling to learn a trade that will yield high wages or a respectable position. It is all a question of profitability calculations. We calculate how much effort will bring us how much likely pleasures, and if we are left with a surplus of pleasure, we act to achieve it. This is how we are all built.
The only difference between man and beast is that man can look forward to a future goal and agree to experience a certain measure of hardship and pain for a future reward. If we examine a specific individual, we will see that all actions stem from this kind of calculation, and that one, in fact, performs them involuntarily.
Environmental Conditioning
Although the desire to enjoy compels us to escape pain and choose pleasure, we are unable to choose even the kind of pleasure we will want. This is because the decision as to what to enjoy is completely out of our hands, as it is affected by others’ desires.
Each person lives within an environment of unique laws and culture. Not only do these determine the rules of our behavior, but they also affect our attitudes toward every aspect of life.
In truth, we do not choose our way of life, our fields of interest, our leisure activities, the food we eat, or the clothing fashions we follow. All these are chosen according to the whims and fancies of our surrounding society.
Moreover, it is not necessarily the better part of society that chooses, but rather the greater part. In fact, we are chained by the manners and preferences of our societies, which have become our norms of behavior.
Gaining society’s appreciation is the motive for everything we do. Even when we want to be different, to do something that no one else has done before or buy something no one else has, or even retire from society and seclude ourselves, we do it to gain society’s appreciation. Thoughts such as, “What will they say about me?” and “What will they think about me?” are the most important factors for us, though we tend to deny and suppress them. After all, admitting to them would seem to annul our “selves.”
From all the above, where, if any, do we find free choice? To answer this question, we must first understand our own essence and see which elements comprise us. In his essay, The Freedom, written in 1933, Baal HaSulam explains that within each object and within each person are four factors that define them.
He concludes the article, after examining the four factors, that our only free choice is the choice of the right environment. If we induce change in our surrounding conditions and improve our environment, we will change the effect of the environment on our changeable qualities, and thus determine our future.
In all of Nature’s degrees—the still, vegetative, animate, and human—only the human can consciously choose an environment that defines its desires, thoughts, and actions. Hence, the correction process is based upon the relationship of the individual with the environment. If our environment comprises a suitable basis for growth, we will achieve great results.