Cloudscape

Effort is nothing more or less than perseverance, than not giving up and going on. It is not being stopped by pain, but not pain itself. “No pain, no gain” is a contradiction in terms, because pain is nothing more than an aversion, a feeling that gives rise to the urge to give up, and aside from this it cannot be distinguished from pleasure. The urge to give up is to be overcome if we are to go on, but if there is no such urge in the first place, then it needs not be overcome. The more one is to gain, the more one is to persevere and so the more pain one will be likely to have to overcome, but the pain is by no means necessary. Pain is not the way, but the stumbling blocks we may or may not encounter on the way.