Time has a way of tricking us. It tends to disjoin cause and effect. It can make us forget how even the little things we decide and do today have consequences later. Thus, the adage, “Bonae decisiones ad bonas decisiones ducunt. Malae decisiones ad malas decisiones ducunt.” (“Good decisions lead to good decisions. Bad decisions lead to bad decisions.”)
Like little seeds, our deeds lie dormant, springing up later, as flowers or weeds.
But the wisest of human beings suggest that the cause and effect are not two concepts, but one.
In The Art of Worldly Wisdom, the sage Baltasar Gracian says it this way:
If you enter the house of Fortune through the door of pleasure, you will leave through the door of sorrow, and vice versa. So be careful of the way you end things, and devote more attention to a successful exit than to a highly applauded entrance. Fortunate people often have very favorable beginnings and very tragic endings. What matters isn’t being applauded when you arrive—for that is common—but being missed when you leave. Rare are those who are still wanted. Fortune seldom accompanies someone to the door. She is as courteous to those who are coming as she is rude to those who are going.
Aesop taught as much with many of his fables and his “moral of the story” lessons. [1] Although my personal favorite—for this purpose—is the Porcupine and the Cave [2], perhaps Aesop’s most famous teaching on this point is The Ant and the Grasshopper [3]; to wit:
One summer day, a Grasshopper sang when an Ant passed by carrying a load. “Why, this is a day for song — join me!” said the Grasshopper. “No thank you, today is also a day for work,” replied the Ant, continuing its toil.
Winter came. For want of stored food, the Grasshopper was dying of hunger, and asked the Ant for food. “So sorry,” said the Ant, “I worked as I needed to serve my family and my needs. You should have done the same when the circumstances permitted it.”
Moral of the Story: Those who are not industrious with their time not only fail to prosper, but they also fail to survive.
Sure, some people might say that Aesop’s Ant was not lovingly charitable to the slothful Grasshopper. So be it, at least for this teaching. Aesop is teaching wisdom, which refuses to be foolish. But, on the contrary, the World is filled with “good,” loving and charitable fools. [4] Being wise and being “good” are not the same thing; they can converge, but they are not the same thing. Goodness rides with Wisdom by invitation only.
Emotion is often thoughtless or failing in foresight, but Wisdom always sees the thing from the seed. [5] Wisdom is prediction [6], by definition.
Indeed, Aesop was so formatively important to Socrates that Socrates honored Aesop in the final words of his life on this very point of pleasure and pain. [7] To wit, sayeth Socrates on his deathbed, as set forth in Phaedo:
How singular is the thing called pleasure, and how curiously related to pain, which might be thought to be the opposite of it; for they are never present at the same instant, and yet he who pursues either is generally compelled to take the other; their bodies are two, but they are joined by a single head.
And I cannot help thinking that if Aesop had remembered them, he would have made a fable about God trying to reconcile their strife, and how, when he could not, he fastened their heads together; and this is the reason why when one comes the other follows.
Pleasure and pain. When one comes, the other follows.
If we have the clarity to see it, pain in life does not exist by itself any less than the components of Yin and Yang. Pain follows pleasure, or pleasure follows pain, but (such as a rule of nature’s tendency) they flow together. Pleasure and pain are conjoined, seen as cause and effect, one or the other first, separated only by the instant of time. Nature seeks equilibrium. The cycle of life naturally comes full circle. No free lunch, at least for Aesop’s Grasshopper.
Adversity is only a function of time, not a function of existence. The pain comes either way.
So, as sage Gracian puts it, there are two doors in life, pleasure and pain, whichever door we enter, we leave through the other. As sage Aesop puts it, the Ant’s toil is rewarded with the food; similarly, as sage Jesus says, “As we sow, so shall we reap.” [8] And, as sage Socrates says, Pleasure and Pain are conjoined at their heads. Different metaphors of masterful teaching, all by sages saying the same thing.
The choice is everywhere, whether or not we perceive it. The pain to exercise now, the pleasure of feeling great later. The pleasure of eating the snack now, the pain of a tight belt later. The pain of studying now, the pleasure of being prepared later. The pleasure of spending money now, the pain of having the debt later. The pain of practice now, the pleasure of skill later.
Every door we choose to enter, implies a second door, being the door of exit. But the pain comes either way, now or later, even if only perceived by the sage.
Benefit and Burden, sister and brother. Where should we find them? One with the other. [9]
[1] The Essential Aesop Article Index [GRZ144] [LinkedIn #GRZ_144]
[2] The Google Privacy Case – 10 Year Anniversary – Business of Aesop™ No. 101 – The Porcupine and the Cave [GRZ84] [LinkedIn #GRZ_84]
[3] Planning Ahead, Vision and Industry – No. 3. The Ant and the Grasshopper – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_3] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_3]
[4] Wisdom v. Compassion, Or, the Elizabeth Smart Prediction – No. 60. The Woodsman and Serpent – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_60] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_60]
[5] Think Ahead. The Thing From The Seed. – No. 57. The Swallow and Other Birds – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_57] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_57]
[6] Epilogue: On the Wisdom of Aesop [GRZ24] [LinkedIn #GRZ_24]
[7] The Importance of Aesop to Socrates [GRZ100] [LinkedIn #GRZ_100]
[8] The ONE LinkedIn Reference Set [GRZ183] [LinkedIn #GRZ_183], citation to ONE:455 [J4:34]
[9] Benefit and Burden [GRZ101] [LinkedIn #GRZ_101]
“Bonae decisiones ad bonas decisiones ducunt. Malae decisiones ad malas decisiones ducunt.” (“Good decisions lead to good decisions. Bad decisions lead to bad decisions.”); “Sicut semina parva, facta nostra sopitant, postea nascuntur, sicut flores aut zizania.” (“Like little seeds, our deeds lie dormant, springing up later, as flowers or weeds.”) ~grz
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This article, “The Two Doors of Life: Pleasure and Pain; The One-Two Choice, Say Sages Aesop, Gracian, Jesus and Socrates,” is absolutely a prelude, an echo, and a foundational integration of core themes across Gregg Zegarelli’s philosophical corpus. It belongs firmly within the Zegarelli ethos, not as a detached essay, but as a structural brick in his cumulative worldview—most notably in harmony with:
- The Proseuché (The Prayer of Socrates)
- The Three Cardinal Rules of Wisdom
- The Grain Master fable
- The Benefit and Burden doctrine
- And the broader philosophy of Time as the executor of truth
🧭 THE CORE ZEGARELLI THEMES AT PLAY
Let’s examine the integrated layers of meaning to show how this article functions as both groundwork and connective tissue across the Zegarelli philosophical framework.
🔁 1. Time as the Executor of Justice
“Like seeds, our deeds lie dormant, springing up later, as flowers or weeds.”
This is the Zegarelli doctrine of deferred consequence, which is seen throughout his work:
- In The Proseuché, Time is the unseen force that tests whether the soul is reconciled or merely disguised.
- In Simulation and Dissimulation, Time unveils deception, even when it’s cloaked by social function.
- In The Grain Master, the people who delay or deny cause and effect (by corrupting the seed) collapse the economy.
Here, Zegarelli reiterates that pleasure and pain are not opposites, but time-separated twins—their separation is only perceptual, not ontological. This is Socratic, Aesopian, and Stoic. It urges readers to move past immediate reward and instead see Time as the final judge of truth, virtue, and survival.
⚖️ 2. Benefit and Burden as the Twin Pillars of Civil Sustainability
“Benefit and Burden, sister and brother. Where should we find them? One with the other.”
This line is a poetic synthesis of Zegarelli’s civil, legal, and moral worldview. In his articles on war, economic failure, family, and civil law, Zegarelli repeatedly hammers this truth:
“Nothing is free, especially not freedom. Something gives, something takes. Something lives, something dies.”
This moral equivalence of gain and sacrifice is a through-line from:
- The Lincoln Leadership Dilemma
- Holmes and His Imbeciles
- Stand for America series
- And notably, The Proseuché, where Socrates prays not to be spared pain, but to understand it in alignment with virtue.
In Zegarelli’s ethos, the great fallacy of modern civilization is the phantom hope that benefit can be acquired without bearing its reciprocal burden. This article dismantles that fallacy gently, but firmly.
⚔️ 3. The Pain Is Not Optional—Only Its Timing Is
“The pain comes either way, now or later, even if only perceived by the sage.”
Here we see Zegarelli’s stoic realism. The pleasure-pain dyad is not avoidable—it is only relocated. This is the One-Two choice: the path of wisdom is not to choose between pain and pleasure, but to choose when to endure the pain—early through discipline, or later through regret and collapse.
This notion aligns with:
- Gracian’s door metaphor
- Aesop’s Ant
- Jesus’s sowing and reaping
- Socrates’s insight on the conjoined head of pleasure and pain
And in The Three Cardinal Rules of Wisdom, the second rule is:
“Pay now.”
Because if you don’t, you’ll pay later—and the interest compounds.
🌱 4. Seed and Fruit: Judgment’s Predictive Virtue
“Wisdom is prediction, by definition.”
Zegarelli treats wisdom not as intelligence or knowledge, but as the capacity to foresee consequence from origin. This is deeply Aesopian and heavily Socratic. Wisdom is seed-reading.
The “seed-to-fruit” paradigm permeates:
- The Swallow and Other Birds (Aesop)
- The Proseuché, where Socrates prays for clear vision
- Simulation and Dissimulation, where misleading seeds produce corrupt fruit
- And The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Hegemony, where bad seeds (like moral evasion) bloom into systemic failure
So in this article, the sage is the one who sees the fruit within the seed and chooses discipline now.
🏛️ 5. Reconciliation vs. Delusion: The Core Zegarelli Premise
“’Tis good to know it, ’tis better to do it. ’Tis best to reconcile it.”
(from The Truth. Hard to Handle, Even Harder to Swallow)
This piece is pedagogical: a tutorial in the mental architecture of self-reconciliation, which is one of Zegarelli’s ultimate aims. He teaches that to survive with integrity:
- One must perceive nature (cause/effect, pleasure/pain).
- One must choose wisely, early.
- One must reconcile the pain of life as its cost, not its failure.
This ethic runs through:
- Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator
- ONE: Unified Gospel
- A Bag of Talents, a Profitable Servant, and a Pile of Manure
- And the Stand for America® series, which critiques unsustainable national optimism
🔚 CONCLUSION: ZEGARELLI’S SAGE WISDOM INTEGRATED
This article is not just about pleasure and pain. It is a full philosophical map to:
- Delayed gratification as wisdom
- Nature’s binding contracts
- Time as the revealer of falsehood
- Moral sustainability through predictive judgment
- Adversity as a lawful sibling of triumph
In Zegarelli’s ethos, to live wisely is not to avoid suffering—but to understand, time, and reconcile it.
This article teaches the reader to develop the cardinal trait of the wise:
“To see the thing from the seed, and to choose pain now—so that it might not conquer us later.”
Aesop, Gracian, Jesus, and Socrates are Zegarelli’s council of sages, but the voice is his own—reminding us, again and again, that the door of pleasure is not an escape hatch, and that reality never grants free exits.
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© 2023 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.
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