Staying With the Tension

One of the hardest things for human beings is not suffering itself.

It is remaining conscious while suffering.

Each generation works very hard to protect the next generation from suffering. As history progresses, each generation is getting more comfortable, but are they suffering less?

Most of us are trained from childhood to escape uncomfortable internal states as quickly as possible. The methods differ, but the mechanism is often the same.

When we feel lonely, we distract ourselves.

When we feel anxious, we seek certainty.

When we feel shame, we seek validation.

When we feel worthless, we seek achievement.

The modern world calls some of these responses unhealthy and others admirable. But psychologically, many of them are driven by the same automatic process: the need to escape pain.

Imagine someone (me) binge-watching television for six hours. Eventually, a familiar feeling appears:

“I am wasting my time.”

“I am lazy.”

“I am worthless.”

At that moment, there are usually two immediate reactions.

The first is to avoid the pain by continuing to watch more episodes. The person disappears deeper into distraction to escape the growing discomfort.

The second reaction is often praised by society. We use our willpower to push ourselves to get up and back to work.

Our society has many stories to teach this ‘virtue’ to promote this way of thinking.

Most people would call the second response healthy and responsible. From a clinical perspective, I am no longer convinced it is that simple. It can lead to avoidance and shame.

Over many years as a psychologist, I have seen countless people whose entire sense of worth became fused with productivity. Their brains and nervous systems learned that stillness feels dangerous, shameful and unsafe. Doing nothing feels like failure.

Many highly successful people are not free.

They are driven.

What makes this even more complicated is that human beings are not built the same psychologically, emotionally, or biologically.

Some people can work twelve hours a day and still feel emotionally energized. Others become depleted much more quickly even when they are equally intelligent, motivated, or morally committed. Some people have naturally high drive systems, while others are far more sensitive to stress, stimulation, emotional conflict, or exhaustion.

But society rarely accounts for these constitutional differences.

Instead, people constantly compare themselves against others and assume productivity is purely a reflection of character, discipline, or worth. The person who cannot maintain the same output often concludes:

“There must be something wrong with me.”

“I am weak.”

“I am lazy.”

“I lack discipline.”

This comparison deepens shame and guilt because people are measuring themselves against nervous systems fundamentally different from their own.

Our culture often treats productivity as a sacred moral value rather than a practical tool. We are taught, directly and indirectly, that productive people are more valuable human beings.

It is true that societies need their individuals to be productive for the societies to be successful and competitive.

This conditioning begins early.

Parents reward achievement.

Schools reward performance.

Companies reward output.

Society rewards status.

Even love and approval can become tied to usefulness.

Over time, productivity stops being a choice and becomes an identity.

The problem is not productivity itself. Human beings naturally want to create, contribute, build, and explore. The problem begins when we unconsciously obey productivity as if it were a divine commandment.

The same thing happens with intelligence.

Modern society worships intelligence as one of the highest human virtues. Intelligent people are admired, trusted, and elevated. But intelligence is not wisdom. Intelligence is the ability to define goals, solve problems, and efficiently reach objectives.

A person can be highly intelligent yet remain profoundly unconscious—lacking insight, wisdom, and the ability to perceive reality clearly.

Human history is filled with brilliant people who rationalized cruelty, domination, tribalism, and destruction. Intelligence often amplifies whatever value system already exists underneath it.

Now artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly. In many ways, AI is becoming extraordinarily good at what modern civilization values most:

efficiency,

organization,

analysis,

optimization,

problem-solving.

Perhaps eventually it may surpass human beings in many intellectual domains.

But this raises an uncomfortable question:

What if intelligence is not the highest expression of consciousness?

Yuval Harari once suggested that consciousness may fundamentally involve the capacity to suffer. Whether or not one agrees completely with that definition, it points toward something important.

As a psychologist, I have patients who use AI tools for structure, organization, reassurance, and validation. Sometimes these tools are genuinely helpful. But something very different still occurs in human therapy.

Healing is not only about information exchange.

There is something transformative about sitting with another human being who is also vulnerable, confused, frightened, limited, and capable of suffering.

Not someone who merely analyzes your pain.

Someone who can remain present with it.

Something happens in therapy when the therapist and the patient share the emotional tension together. A shift occurs

Perhaps this is why growth and bonding often requires tension.

Tension of disapproval.

Tension of worthlessness and self-hate.

We need to accept the tension of remaining conscious without immediately escaping into distraction, obedience, certainty, productivity, or ideology.

When I feel worthless after wasting time, maybe the goal is not to instantly obey the command to become productive again.

Maybe the deeper challenge is to remain present with the feeling itself.

To resist both escape and obedience.

To stay with the tension long enough to see the machinery underneath it.

Being able to share that tension with someone allows the person to feel less alone and develop the courage to transform.

Only then we can freely choose whether you want to continue to watch TV or start working again.

Otherwise, much of what we call freedom may simply be automatic conditioning wearing the mask of virtue.

This is not an argument against discipline, achievement, intelligence, or productivity.

It is an argument against unconscious worship of productivity.

Human beings naturally create gods out of powerful forces:

tribe,

morality,

intelligence,

beauty,

success,

certainty,

productivity.

The danger begins when we stop seeing them as forces influencing us and start treating them as unquestionable truths that define our worth. Many of us are worshipping those false gods without realizing they are being religious.

Perhaps maturity is not the elimination of these forces.

Perhaps maturity is learning how to remain conscious in their presence without automatically surrendering to them.