The Alchemy of Pain
Embracing the Duality of Growth and Suffering
Human beings have been theorizing about the origin of the universe for… a little while now. Most of us eventually end up at the puzzling question “how can something be created from nothing?”
Religion kicks the can down the road a bit further, positing that God created the universe, begging the obvious question “Who created God?”
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that aims to provide us with the framework for understanding this question and its possible answers, along with the nature of the universe and… reality itself. Almost there now!
Concrete facts are of course elusive in this realm, but if we look closely, maybe there are some breadcrumbs along the trail.
Consider these examples of “things” that produce “nothing” when they come together:
Noise-cancelling headphones emit sound waves that are out-of-phase with the sound waves in the environment, producing your calming “cone of silence.”
When electrons and positrons collide, they participate in something poetically dubbed “electron-positron annihilation.” This process is the basis for PET[1] scan imaging.
When you add -1 to 1, you get zero.
Even with all the apparent fury and thunder of our universe, it always seems to dutifully obey the first law of thermodynamics, in which its total energy doesn’t fluctuate at all. Mass is converted to energy, exchanged in a diversity of forms, and converted back again in a cosmic dance across the infinite stretch of time.
Reversing this thought process, it should then be a little easier to accept the proposition that since things can together produce nothingness when combined, then they should also be able to arise from nothingness.
Furthermore, it probably wouldn’t be surprising if these emerging somethings were somehow complementary: matter and antimatter being co-created during the big bang, for example. They can be seen as two sides of the same coin, forever entangled since birth until the day they once again fade into the nothingness that begat them.
Though human beings can seem infinitely more mysterious than math or particles, what would happen if we projected this something-from-nothing duality onto the realm of human experience as an abstract proposition? Give me some rope, here, and I’ll try to explain.
We divide the world up into “good” and “bad,” and then set off on a quest to pursue the good and avoid the bad in our attempt to learn, change, and grow in a positive direction. Our target is often “success” in some form, hoping that wisdom, courage, character, and grace eventually emerge as our top prizes. We’re on a path to be better people.
We’re told that we may stumble and fail, but this creates the illusion that we just might able to walk a tightrope of success. And so is born the implicit hope that “for me, it’s going to be different.”
But what if failure and success, instead of being independent, are two sides of the same coin? How would it change your approach to life if you understood that they, like their metaphysical counterparts, are also forever entangled since birth? Wouldn’t we then stop trying to avoid failure on the road to success, but completely accept it as a necessary evil?
Indeed, concepts like “success” are relativistic. The very notion of success is impossible to contemplate without a complementary notion of failure. We wouldn’t appreciate a beach vacation as much if we didn’t first freeze our fingers shoveling the driveway snow. All coins have a head and tail, each defining the other.
Our culture laments hardship and struggle. It attempts to disentangle positivity and success from negativity and failure; it tells us to pursue the former and avoid the latter. This thinking obstructs our growth and keeps us stuck in the Waiting Place, nervously scanning for that impossibly narrow path.
To get moving, we must pack the complete pros-and-cons list in our travel bag, set forth, and fully expect and welcome the challenges coming our way. Our future ideal and all the pain and suffering it will take to achieve it are born together. As the Buddha said, life is suffering.
In that light, let’s call out both sides of some important coins, and contemplate the Alchemy of Pain to see if we can change our perspective from one of avoidance to one of purpose.
Failure is on the other side of wisdom.
Entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs often emphasized the importance of learning from failure. Similarly, in her 2008 Harvard University commencement speech entitled "The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.” J.K. Rowling described how failure helped her to clear away the “inessential” from her life, removing distraction from her writing, “the one arena where [she] believed [she] truly belonged.”
“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you’ve failed by default.
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected. I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.”
- J.K. Rowling
JK Rowling on Failure, Harvard commencement speech, June 5, 2008
It’s tempting to grab after wisdom with academic study. But the path to wisdom is not a straight line; it's a winding road filled with setbacks, disappointments, and mistakes. Whether it’s riding a bike, mastering a career, or navigating relationships, each failure is an opportunity to reflect, adjust, and try again with more knowledge than you had before. These lessons compound over time, transforming simple knowledge into wisdom.
If we suffer humiliation because of our failure, we’re also given the gift of humility. Two coins for the price of one!
Regret is on the other side of character.
Danny DeVito’s character (“Phil Cooper”) delivers a scene-stealing monologue in The Big Kahuna, in which he verbally undresses his colleague Peter Facinelli (“Bob”), connecting the dots between character and regret.
Phil: “The question is ‘do you have any character at all?’ and if you want my honest opinion, Bob, you do not, for the simple reason that you don’t regret anything yet.”
Bob: “You’re saying that I won’t have any character, unless I do something I regret?”
Phil: “No, Bob – I’m saying you’ve already done plenty of things to regret. You just don’t know what they are. It’s when you discover them… when you see the folly of something you’ve done; and you wish that you had it to do over. But you know you can’t. Because it’s too late. So you pick that thing up and you carry it with you to remind you that life goes on. The world will spin without you. You really don’t matter in the end. Then you will attain character, because honesty will reach out from inside and tattoo itself all across your face. Until that day, however, you cannot expect to go beyond a certain point.”
Danny DeVito's monologue in the Big Kahuna
Regret is a burden we carry when we've made poor decisions or hurt others. But flip the coin and we find the catalyst for growth and moral improvement. Regret is at once the painful reminder of our imperfection and the internal moral compass that guides us toward actions that are more aligned with who we want to be. Without it, we cannot build character.
Empathy is on the other side of grace.
Grace is often understood as elegance in action or thoughtfulness in response to others. It’s that ability to navigate difficult situations with calm, kindness, and dignity. But true grace, the kind that touches lives and changes people, is rooted in empathy. Without empathy, grace is merely superficial—an act of politeness or decorum rather than a genuine expression of human kindness.
Empathy allows us to step outside of our own experiences and imagine what someone else might be feeling. When we cultivate empathy, we open ourselves up to deeper connections and more meaningful interactions. Grace flows naturally from this place of understanding.
Without empathy, you may respond in kind to someone lashing out at you. But with empathy, you might instead recognize that their reaction is coming from a place of pain, frustration, or insecurity. This doesn’t excuse their behavior, but it allows you to respond with kindness rather than judgment. That’s grace in action—a response rooted in understanding rather than ego.
Empathy also helps us navigate complex social dynamics with greater ease. We’re better able to read the room, gauge emotions, and respond in ways that are appropriate and kind. Whether it’s offering a listening ear, providing comfort during difficult times, or simply being present for someone in need, empathy is the driving force behind graceful behavior.
Understanding that everyone is going through their own struggle, we are more likely to extend compassion and forgiveness, which are the hallmarks of grace.
Vulnerability and fear are on the other side of courage.
Real courage cannot exist without fear. To be courageous is to take action in the face of fear, not to simply “never feel fear,” which probably makes you a sociopath! Whether it’s stepping outside of your comfort zone, speaking up in difficult situations, or taking a significant risk, courage is born from confronting what scares us most. Fear teaches us what’s at stake, and only by moving through it do we develop courage.
Duality abounds!
These two-sided coins are everywhere!
Adversity is on the other side of resilience. Whether it’s personal loss, failure, or obstacles in life, adversity tests our ability to persevere, adapt, and bounce back.
We learn patience by exposure to frustration, unmet expectations, and prolonged uncertainty.
Constraints promote creativity by forcing us to think in new and innovative ways.
Self-confrontation travels with self-awareness.
True confidence emerges after repeatedly facing insecurity and self-doubt, not from the simple arrogance of overestimating our abilities.
Compassion is born from an understanding of what suffering feels like firsthand.
The freedom and power we experience when we forgive must have meant we were hurt or betrayed in the first place.
We first notice gratitude for our relationships, job, or good health when we lose them.
We are amazing machines. Our brains are literally rewired each time we work through painful experiences, in a process known as neural plasticity. As a result, our feelings about these experiences change the next time the same experience comes along, making it easier for us to cope, and providing new strategies with which we can experiment.
It's easy to admire people who seem capable, wise, graceful, or of unimpeachable character. They appear calm, thoughtful, and in control, moving through life with a sense of purpose while we the unwashed masses are forced to thrash about in the muck of our weakness and misfortune.
But I invite you to see them in a new light: as people who have a long history earning their stripes through failure, regret, pain, and suffering. And then ask for their stories! You’ll find that their strong character hasn’t been marked by an absence of pain, but by its presence.
A good friend once told to me that whenever he sees a beginner kite surfer tirelessly trudging along the beach with his board in one hand and kite flying in the other because he hasn’t yet learned how to ride upwind, it reminds him that every single expert rider having a blast out in the deep water shared those same painful walks down the beach, binding them together as “people who know.” In fact, in connecting them over the shared experience of kitesurfing, the pain is just as important as the ability to surf, if not more so.
How many times have you heard someone say something like “I’ll show you how to sidestep all the beginner mistakes. I’ve already made them all, so you don’t have to!” Well-intentioned or otherwise, these people are thieves, inadvertently stealing your future greatness from you.
“The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks, means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You may never know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
So given a time turner, I’d tell my 21-year old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone’s total control. And the humility to know that, will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.”
We are all works in progress. In our quest to become whole, should we not embrace the full spectrum of the human experience, reflecting the nature of the universe itself? We don’t have to go in search of suffering—it will surely find us. But if we try to avoid the messy, difficult parts of life, our world never expands, and our growth becomes shallow and incomplete. Working through friction and pressure makes us extraordinary. Get curious about these moments, dive deeply into them, and use them for good purpose. They are the fires in which your character is forged.
[1] Positron Emission Tomography
Music on voiceover from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/ak/decades
License code: PU2ZQ3UFKCULOD0O
We teach kids first how to hit a home run first without teaching them how to strikeout.