A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are

The words “A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams,” were spoken by Simone Weil, the French mystic, philosopher, and revolutionary whose short life burned with the intensity of truth. In this saying, Weil reveals one of her deepest convictions: that reality—true reality, both physical and spiritual—is not soft or easy, but demanding and unyielding. She distinguishes between joy and pleasure, between what strengthens the soul and what merely soothes it. Through her words, she calls upon us to seek meaning not in comfort, but in struggle; not in illusion, but in the fierce embrace of truth.

To Weil, the “hard and rough” nature of reality is not cruelty but honesty. The world’s challenges, its injustices, its losses, and its labors—these are not curses, but the raw materials through which the human spirit is tested and refined. Just as metal must endure fire to become strong, so must the soul pass through difficulty to touch what is real. Pleasure, by contrast, she calls a dream—a fleeting shadow, a momentary sweetness that vanishes as quickly as it comes. It gives the illusion of fullness but leaves behind emptiness. True joy, on the other hand, arises when one accepts life’s harshness with courage and faith, finding meaning even in pain.

Weil lived her philosophy. Born into comfort, she turned her back on privilege to work in factories, to serve the poor, to join the resistance of the oppressed. She sought to understand the suffering of others not from afar, but from within. Her life was an experiment in truth, a refusal to settle for comfort or illusion. When she wrote that the test of what is real lies in its difficulty, she was not speaking as a distant scholar but as one who had touched the fire herself. For her, truth demanded that one participate in the world’s suffering, that one learn through hardship the true weight and beauty of existence.

Consider, for a moment, the story of Nelson Mandela, imprisoned for twenty-seven years in the darkness of Robben Island. His reality was hard and rough indeed—cold stones, narrow walls, endless days. Yet within that hardship, he found something deeper than pleasure: he found joy in purpose, in the unbreakable dignity of the human will. His suffering became his teacher. The comforts of life—good food, freedom, ease—were denied to him, yet through endurance he became more real, more luminous, than those who had sought to destroy him. In this, Mandela lived Weil’s truth: that the soul’s greatness is not born from pleasant dreams, but from the labor of waking.

Weil’s wisdom strikes at the heart of a modern world that worships comfort and pleasure. We are taught to chase what feels good, to avoid what is hard, to confuse satisfaction with happiness. But what is pleasant, she reminds us, “belongs to dreams.” It is an illusion that fades when morning comes. Reality, with all its imperfections and struggles, is the forge where character is shaped. To face reality is to awaken—to stand firm in the storm and discover that even within hardship, there is joy, a joy that comes not from escape, but from presence, endurance, and truth.

To embrace this truth is not to reject beauty or rest, but to understand their rightful place. Pleasure is a momentary gift; joy is a state of being. Pleasure vanishes when the world grows dark; joy endures even in sorrow. Joy comes from the soul’s alignment with truth, from the recognition that the world’s difficulty is also its sacredness. When we cease to run from pain and instead meet it with openness, we awaken to the deeper pulse of life—the reality that joy and sorrow are woven together in the same divine fabric.

Thus, O seeker of wisdom, let Weil’s words become your compass. Do not flee from the “hard and rough” places of existence; they are your teachers. When life tests you, when the path grows steep, know that you walk within the realm of what is real. Seek joy, not pleasure. Stand firm in truth, not illusion. Each challenge faced with honesty and courage polishes the soul as stone polishes the diamond.

And when you find yourself weary, remember this: pleasure sleeps, but joy awakens. The pleasant dream fades at dawn, but the joy found in struggle endures beyond time. For it is in the roughness of life that we touch eternity—it is there, amid hardship and truth, that the spirit shines most brightly, and we finally see the world as it truly is.