joy & difficult: right direction - towards future - eyes open. joy & !difficult: wrong direction - towards past. !joy & !difficult: boredom - not moving. !joy & difficult: anxiety - eyes closed - being carried towards the future.
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acceptance of difficulty/struggle ie. 'the obstacle is the way' way merges the two. the difficulty of life and the difficulty of joy become the same thing.
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though difficulty can be fetishized. ascetism, self-flagellation(the mental form is quite an epidemic), even wine/coffee tasting. difficulty becomes some sort of stack ranking exercise. "ah yes, this wine tastes like the dirt of 1960's France, can't you tell?"