Maggie's Farm

I once told a customer that purchasing a large computer system was built on pain, specifically degrees of pain, or more specifically, the avoidance of pain.

The customer was on the fence about replacing the large system they had with a larger one. (bigger, cheaper, faster, more storage, all the B.S. that salespeople use to entice customers to part with their money.) And I, as their technician, was asked (privately) for advice.

So I told her, that buying a new box was determined by pain. When the pain of waiting for screens to appear, failing hardware, lack of features, or outside requirements became more painful than the paperwork involved in buying a new box, they would make the decision.

We're mostly creatures of status quo, avoiding change (because its painful), comfortable in the current existence, tending not to move until some force makes us move. I think very little is done in the pursuit of pleasure, mostly whatever is done is the avoiding the pain. (albeit, this occurring after childhood when we were mostly oblivious to painful consequences.) Most of the lessons in life come at the experience of pain, if it hurts, you learn to avoid doing that (or at least, doing it in a less painful manner).

Eventually, this pursuit of "avoidance of painful consequences" becomes so ingrained that we get on automatically with life. I call it wisdom.