A little bit more on the pleasure is the pain principle. I don't seem to like things until I hate them first. For example, sometimes at work a student will be sharing the tough roads they travel with me, and there will be tears and tissues and misery, and I will think, "I can't do this any more." I just can't take the suffering. But I will put my whole being into the listening, I will exercise the best part of being human: compassion. And, lo and behold, the storm will pass. I will have "eased the pain," as my professor, Dr. Lurie, used to say when I was in graduate school, and I will think, "I love this job." I am so blessed to feel useful, maybe even needed. So, for me, work is pleasure.

But it was at work, on a completely different note, that I started thinking about this pleasure is the pain business. I mentioned to Bonnie that I wanted to steal Ernie away for a February break so that we could go hiking in Virginia. She said, "Do you guys ever remember how you feel when you go hiking, how much pain you're in when you get home?" I said, "Well, you know how it is; it's like childbirth. Once it's over you sort of forget the pain." She wasn't won over by this argument, seeing as how she stopped having kids after creating two of the little buggers.

What can I say? It's just that you feel good after completing a difficult challenge. Jake and I are doing a workout program that puts me in a state of fear every time I think about it. It pretty much turns me to jelly. But there's only 14 total workouts (which get progressively more difficult) and we've completed five so far. Pretty soon we'll reach the halfway point and slide down the hill for home.

Or is it more like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill?