Hard work unlocks rarer forms of fun

People who've achieved mastery have a lightness to their depth — they love what they do, and they have access to a kind of knowing, physical and emotional, that most people can't imagine. That depth is fun in a way passive entertainment isn't.

So suffering isn't opposed to fun — it's upstream of certain kinds of fun. The frame is: what else makes the suffering worth it? You put in hard work not despite being hedonistic, but because you are. Suffering can be in service of hedonism.

This is a counter point to the idea that there can only be pleasure or pain. You're not sacrificing fun for work. You're doing hard work in order to access forms of fun that easy pleasure can't reach.

[!TIP] If you find yourself asking "what's the point of all this effort?" — the answer can simply be that it earns you access to a level of engagement and aliveness you can't get any other way.

Source claim: Mastery is a form of hedonism — hard work unlocks rarer, deeper forms of fun that passive pleasure can't reach.