LinkedIn presents.

I'm Rufus Griscom, and this is the next big idea.

Today, the 2000-year-old case for hedonism.

Do you like pain? It's a funny question. Who likes pain?

Most of us, I think, would say that some suffering is part of a good life, and we admire those who suffer well.

There was a saying in the 1980s when I was growing up, no pain, no gain, a workout mantra,

and more lies by Jane Fonda. But some quips your put, no pain, no pain, on a bumper sticker,

and I remember thinking, that's more like it. Must we be masochists?

On the one hand, you might say that masochism is a clever adaptation to a world in which suffering is inevitable.

If we're gonna feel pain, we may as well learn to like it.

We've also learned that a certain amount of discomfort resets our hedonic set point and makes pleasure more readily available.

I learned this from fascinating conversations with Anilemke and Paul Bloom in two of my favorite episodes in the last few years.

On the other hand, a reasonable case could be made that we celebrate masochism to a degree that's unhealthy.

Embrace suffering in this life so you might enter the kingdom of heaven in the next one.

Our priests have been telling us this for millennia in what smacks of a scam to keep peasants toiling the fields and tithing the church.

For those of us uncertain of our future in the kingdom of heaven, it might make sense to optimize for joy a little sooner.

We are, after all, animals whose experiences of pleasure and pain have evolved over millions of years.

The stuff that feels good feels good for a reason.

Not just sex and eating, which are helpful for obvious reasons, but the joy of friendship, the pleasure of moving our bodies outside in nature.

We're building things of value, treating each other with kindness.

Among my favorite conversations on the show was a discussion with Antonio DiMazio about the evolution of feelings.

It turns out those got feelings we have, sometimes good, sometimes bad, reflect a sophisticated pattern recognition,

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