This video features neuroscientist Dr. Jang Dong-sun introducing the book The Sweet Spot by Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom, deeply exploring how pain gives meaning and pleasure to our lives from a perspective different from what we typically think of as happiness. It delivers the message that paradoxically choosing and experiencing pain in a happiness-obsessed modern society can bring genuine satisfaction and resilience, while also discussing the psychology of modern people who can't tolerate boredom and humanity's innate drive to assign meaning to pain. The book offers a powerful resonance by suggesting that enduring pain is actually a shortcut to a happier life for those who only chase happiness.
1. The Sweet Spot: The Paradox of Pain and Happiness
Neuroscientist Dr. Jang Dong-sun introduced Paul Bloom's book The Sweet Spot on the KBS 1 Radio weekend program [Byeolchaek Burok (Special Appendix)]. Neuroscientists typically receive questions about how to use the brain better, improve memory, or increase happiness, but this book caught Dr. Jang's interest by offering answers to such questions from the unexpected perspective of "selective pain." The original English title is The Sweet Spot, meaning finding the balance point between pain and joy, but Dr. Jang noted that the Korean title The Best Pain delivers the message more powerfully and piques curiosity.
The book makes the fascinating argument that life can improve when we deliberately seek hardship and choose selective pain. Dr. Jang explains that, in a similar vein to Dopamine Nation which sparked the recent dopamine detox craze, this book contains deep neuroscientific insights.
"This book talks about how our lives can improve when we deliberately seek hardship and choose selective pain. It contains a great deal of neuroscientific insight, and in trying to find a book that takes the question of how we can become a bit happier and twists it in an interesting, contrarian way, I ended up with The Best Pain."
Author Paul Bloom is a Yale psychology professor and a student of Susan Carey, a leading cognitive scientist. He's known for his contrarian streak. In his previous book Against Empathy, he made the paradoxical argument that empathy isn't always entirely good. This book similarly makes the bold claim that the answer to happiness paradoxically lies in pain. Rather than the superficial saying "after hardship comes happiness," it goes deep into our brains and psychology to scientifically explain how pain works and how choosing it can make life happier.
2. Why You Should Seek Hardship: The Value of Selective Pain
In this book, Paul Bloom divides pain into two types: selective pain and non-selective pain. The sudden misfortunes we want to avoid -- family ruin, serious illness, accidents -- fall under non-selective pain. Interestingly, research shows that people who experience such non-selective pain don't suffer as long as expected.
What this book focuses on is selective pain. Dr. Jang explains selective pain by comparing it to a vaccine. Just as we build immunity by deliberately introducing a virus into the body, when we voluntarily choose hardship, we can develop mental calluses against life's difficulties. Through this, we become better equipped to endure unexpected pain when it strikes.
"In a sense, we can build mental calluses against life's difficulties that we can't choose, thereby preparing ourselves. So it's kind of like a vaccine."
Furthermore, selective pain is connected to our ability to feel small but certain happiness (sohokhwak). Modern people chase greater pleasures and stimulation, but the book points out that this can actually lead to depression or emptiness. Dr. Jang uses his own dieting experience as an example -- abstaining from his beloved carbohydrates and then feeling immense happiness when finally eating ramen or tteokbokki -- to explain how pain cultivates the ability to find happiness in small things.
Pleasure from pain goes beyond a mere baseline effect. We feel pleasure even while sweating during a hike or experiencing muscle-tearing pain during exercise. Such pleasure from pain can be far more intense than simple enjoyment. In Chapter 2, Paul Bloom introduces the concept of "benign masochism," comparing it to masochism that derives sexual pleasure from pain, and uses examples of workaholics and exercise addicts who gain pleasure from pushing themselves in everyday life. Even ancient Greek philosophers believed that the highest pleasure, ataraxia, came from overcoming hardship.
Our brains don't judge absolute good or bad but rather experience pleasure and joy through the difference from the previous state. Like eye movement experiments show, if there's no difference at all, we can't experience anything. The emptiness of drug addicts is a prime example of what happens when this "difference" disappears. After experiencing artificially extreme pleasure, the dopamine stores are depleted, leaving one unable to feel happiness from any stimulus.
3. The Essence of Happiness: Pleasure or Meaning?
The question of where happiness comes from and what it is has been an enduring subject of human inquiry since Aristotle's time. The Greeks divided happiness into two concepts: hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (meaning). Dr. Jang explains that happy people can achieve lasting happiness when they find and pursue meaning in life.
The book emphasizes that humans are beings with multiple desires. This doesn't simply mean vengeful desires, but rather that humans like delicious things while also liking painful things, enjoy seeking hardship, and pursue goodness and moral values that benefit others -- meaning that diverse desires compose happiness in complex ways.
"It's not revenge -- there's great diversity within us. People like delicious things but also like painful things, enjoy seeking hardship, and pursue goodness, morality, ethics, and things that bring happiness to more people. These compose happiness in very complex ways, which is why we can't find a single answer with a single desire. The book emphasizes that there is great diversity within us."
Why do people pay money to watch horror movies, buy spicy food, or enter haunted houses? When we eat spicy food, the brain releases endorphins to eliminate the pain, and these endorphins have an analgesic effect that makes not just the spicy pain but also other pains in life (hardships, betrayals, etc.) disappear. In this way, we can become addicted to the experience of making the brain release its own drugs through pain to forget other aches.
Moreover, pain and negative stimuli are felt far more intensely than positive stimuli. Just as in movies, the intensity of stimulus from gruesome and cruel scenes overwhelms that of gentle amusement. The brain seeks this intense stimulus and state of arousal, and because the pleasure obtained through it is more powerful than gentle enjoyment, people sometimes voluntarily choose pain.
In this context, the book emphasizes finding the optimal point between pain and pleasure -- the "sweet spot." While excessive pain can send you into a downfall, pain that you selectively choose to endure and that makes you stronger can be the answer to achieving greater happiness.
4. Modern People Who Can't Stand Boredom: The Trap of Stimulus-Seeking
Modern people extremely dislike boredom and ennui. In an era overflowing with diverse stimulation -- smartphones, mobile games, OTT services -- we can't sit still for even a moment and constantly consume something. Paul Bloom views this as stimulus addiction and points out that when we can't tolerate boredom and only chase stimulation, we actually miss out on the meaning that could bring greater happiness to our lives.
Dr. Jang admits that he too tends to seek stimulation, but shares that the satisfaction he feels after completing tedious and difficult tasks like writing articles or books gives deeper meaning. If we continuously chase only instant gratification, it becomes difficult to have these deep experiences.
Even more shocking experimental results exist. People placed in an extremely boring state chose to administer electric shocks to themselves. From the brain's perspective, experiencing even pain is better than experiencing nothing at all. This is because even painful experiences can be regarded as important learning opportunities that aid survival.
"If it comes down to a state of experiencing nothing versus experiencing pain, the brain may judge that experiencing even something painful is better."
The reason people voluntarily imagine bad scenarios or enjoy watching melodramatic shows is also connected to this. Virtually experiencing pain can feel like a useful experience, or comparing oneself to others' negative experiences can provide psychological comfort. Just as watching the protagonists of Squid Game makes you feel "I'm glad I'm not in that situation."
5. The Price of Effort and Hardship: The Importance of Meaning-Making
We often convert the value of physical and mental labor into money or compensation. This is because the formula that you should receive rewards proportional to your hardship is unconsciously imprinted. The book introduces Edward Thorndike's shocking "hypothetical price experiment." This experiment had people imagine how much compensation would be needed for them to do embarrassing, painful, or immoral things. For example, questions like "How much money would it take for you to spit in your mother's face?" Fortunately, these never led to actual behavior, but surprisingly, rather than saying they would absolutely never do it, when the offered amount increased, people eventually said they would do it.
This experiment reveals the human nature that even pain can be exchanged for compensation, and raises questions about why we think we can exchange pain for rewards like money.
This connects to meaning-making theory. Our brains constantly ponder whether any experience has meaning. Especially with painful experiences, we believe the pain must have meaning to be endurable. Like Stockholm syndrome, when the brain can't rationalize meaningless pain, it tends to assign its own meaning to endure the suffering.
"Because we can't stand suffering for no reason, and because the brain experiences tremendous pain from this, we keep trying to assign meaning even if it's not actually true."
"Everything Happens For a Reason" is also a form of meaning-making. Even a physicalist who believes everything happens by chance, when faced with life's difficulties, craves interpretations like "Maybe I became a better person because I went through this." Behavioral researchers like Daniel Gilbert say that such beliefs actually help improve self-resilience.
Why do people deliberately climb difficult mountains or run marathons? The book explains it's because they choose experiences that will be remembered as meaningful in the future. Rather than immediate satisfaction, they choose actions that they'll look back on and say "that was really great, it was meaningful." Additionally, people choose hardship out of curiosity about themselves -- to discover how far they can go, what they like, and what makes them happy.
6. Does Everything Happen for a Reason? The Sweet Spot for Self-Resilience and Growth
Humans try to assign meaning to even the smallest things. This is also an instinct to escape the current state and increase satisfaction. Dr. Jang uses his military service experience as an example, interpreting how memories that were actually painful are later talked about as if they were good times, due to this psychological mechanism.
When experiencing heartbreak, consoling yourself with "that happened so I could meet someone better" is also an example of meaning-making. The brain wants to feel meaning about who you are and why you live this life, more than satisfaction and pleasure. And these moments of feeling meaning actually come more strongly when you hit rock bottom or feel pain in life.
"The brain actually wants to feel meaning about what I'm doing, who I am, and why I'm living this life, more than satisfaction and pleasure. And the moments when you feel meaning don't come when everything is warm and comfortable, but rather when you hit some low point or feel pain -- that's when meaning-making comes more powerfully."
While meaning-making can enhance self-resilience, there are also problems when it devolves into excessive rationalization or "mental victory." You might fail to fix your own mistakes or flawed aspects and end up repeating the same pain. In such cases, it's more productive to fully experience the pain and resolve: "Why am I suffering so much? Ah, I made this mistake. I'll never make this mistake again!" -- and then actually change.
Ultimately, the best pain is about finding the "sweet spot" of moderately assigning meaning for self-recovery while simultaneously reflecting and improving without falling into complacency. It means not just avoiding pain but enduring it to some degree so that you can become a different person who won't have to suffer that same pain again.
Conclusion
Through Paul Bloom's The Sweet Spot, neuroscientist Dr. Jang Dong-sun delivered the paradoxical message that happiness doesn't come simply from the pursuit of pleasure, but rather arrives in a deeper and more lasting form when we face pain and find meaning within it. Just as there is no single best move for a chess champion, there is no single answer to happiness that applies to everyone -- as Viktor Frankl's quote suggests, we must each find our own meaning in the pain we uniquely experience.
Dr. Jang said he wanted this book to convey the message that "for people who seek happiness in ever-better things, more delicious things, and more stimulation, the answer actually lies in the opposite direction." Enduring voluntary hardship, even though it's tough right now, is paradoxically the faster path to happiness, and the insight it provides is that those who chase only happiness can achieve greater happiness only by experiencing pain. We, living in 2025 overflowing with stimulation, can achieve genuine self-recovery and satisfaction through the courage to choose and experience meaningful pain ourselves, rather than envying others' happiness on Instagram.