The adult has an incredibly high threshold for pain because the adult
understands that life, in order to be meaningful, requires pain, that nothing
can or necessarily should be controlled or bargained for, that you can simply
do the best you can do, regardless of the consequences.
Psychological growth is an escape from nihilism, a process of building
more and more sophisticated and abstract value hierarchies in order to
stomach whatever life throws our way.
Childish values are fragile. The moment the ice cream is gone, an
existential crisis sets in—followed by a screaming shit fit. Adolescent values
are more robust because they include the necessity of pain, but they are still
susceptible to unexpected and/or tragic events. Adolescent values inevitably
break down in extreme circumstances or over a long enough period of time.
Truly adult values are antifragile: they benefit from the unexpected. The
more fucked up a relationship gets, the more useful honesty becomes. The
more terrifying the world is, the more important it is to summon up the
courage to face it. The more confusing life becomes, the more valuable it is to
adopt humility.
These are the virtues of a post-hope existence, the values of true
adulthood. They are the North Star of our minds and our hearts. No matter the
turbulence or chaos taking place on earth, they stand above it all, untouched,
always shining, always guiding us through the darkness.
Pain Is Value
Many scientists and techno enthusiasts believe that one day we will develop
the capabilities to “cure” death. Our genetics will be modified and optimized.
We will develop nanobots that monitor and eradicate anything that could
medically threaten us. Biotechnology will enable us to replace and restore our
bodies in perpetuity, thus allowing us to live forever.
It sounds like science fiction, but some even believe that we could achieve
this technology in our lifetime.^27
The idea of removing the possibility of death, of overcoming our
biological fragility, of alleviating all pain, is incredibly exciting on the
surface. But I think it could also be a psychological disaster in the making.
For one, if you remove death, you remove any scarcity from life. And if
you remove scarcity, you remove the ability to determine value. Everything
will seem equally good or bad, equally worthy or unworthy of your time and
attention, because . . . well, you would have infinite time and attention. You
could spend a hundred years watching the same TV show, and it wouldn’t