Playing with pain and pleasure

There's a feeling when pain and pleasure are so intertwined that it's impossible to distinguish one from the other.
You can be happy when something aches inside; you can enjoy the moment when your heart groans with anxiety.
It's this very boundary that the bravest seek. Playing with yourself, with emotions, with what can't be called "right."
Sometimes it seems that pleasure without pain has no flavor. Suffering makes it real, intense, genuine.
We create small challenges: silence instead of speech, pause instead of action, cold instead of warmth. And in this control lies a strange satisfaction.
Paradoxically, the more we play, the closer we get to the edge, the stronger the desire to break the rules. But it's precisely this risk that makes emotions come alive.