Painful thoughts are vital for life

Patanjali, a mystic philosopher of ancient India, noted in a sutra (aphorism) that it is useless (to life) to categorize thoughts as “painful” or “pleasurable.”

Father is fucking Jolene and gambling away the family fortune at drunken orgies with her is a painful thought, hypothetically if that was your father and Jolene was his cheat over your mother (to whom he is still married). I am an alcoholic is a painful thought. But are these bad thoughts? Presumably you want to protect your family, or your body.

These thoughts go from “bad” to simply the truth. And the truth is painful much a time, though one finds it opens to broader vistas of deepest pleasure soon on.

My paycheck will hit my account tomorrow. This is a pleasurable thought for most. But is it good? It’s hard to say. Many of us are stuck in awful, soul destroying 9-5 jobs. Dolly Parton’s song struck a chord.

Patanjali says to instead think of thoughts as either “selfish” or “selfless.” Selfish would be keeping your mouth shut --- father is powerful and might lash out, or the process of change is painful. Better to be comfortable but stagnant. But on a deeper level, even this is not selfish. Because it’s you who will have to live with yourself within your own mind.

The same mind, unless disciplined, which will tell you to take the comfortable path but then never let you forget for having done so. So you start drinking.