Pearls: Adaptation in an Unsafe Context
Questions About Change, Responsibility, and Control
There has always been a fascination with pearls. We consider them rare, beautiful, valuable. We wear them. We associate them with refinement, with something “earned” over time. Rarely, however, do we think about how they are formed. Rarely do we ask what had to happen for a pearl to exist.
A pearl is not the expression of healthy functioning. It is not a sign of optimal biological performance. It is the result of a defense mechanism. When a foreign body enters a mollusk and creates persistent irritation, the organism responds by isolating it. Layer by layer, it coats the irritant until what began as aggression becomes smooth, luminous, acceptable.
A pearl is not proof of evolution; it is proof of adaptation to stress. Most oysters never produce pearls. And that does not make them less healthy or less functional. Biologically speaking, they do not need pearls in order to live. The absence of a pearl is not a failure. It is the norm.
And yet, we admire pearls.
When Adaptation Becomes a Measure of Worth
From the outside, pearls are easy to admire. They are beautiful, polished, durable. We do not see the irritation or the process behind them. In fact, sometimes oysters are deliberately subjected to this process. We see only the result — and we assign it value without questioning the cost.
Something similar happens with people. In unsafe, unpredictable, or overwhelming contexts, human beings develop defense mechanisms. Not because they are broken, but because living systems do what they are designed to do: adapt.
Rigidity, hyper-control, emotional detachment, overperformance, flawless functioning under pressure, avoidance, numbing — these can all be layers of nacre. They isolate pain. They make irritation bearable. They transform distress into something socially acceptable, often something even admirable.
We speak of people as “strong,” “resilient,” “able to handle anything,” “not complainers.” Rarely do we ask what was required for them to build that resilience. Almost never do we ask whether it was necessary in the first place.
When the Pearl Becomes the Acceptable Story
“You turned out well.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t be this strong if that hadn’t happened.”
“In the end, it made you stronger.”
These phrases are often spoken with good intentions, even admiration. They attempt to give meaning to pain, to integrate it into a coherent narrative. They shift attention from irritation to outcome, from process to product.
What they often do, however, is retroactively justify the context by pointing to the result. If something valuable emerged, the irritation begins to seem acceptable — perhaps even necessary. The question “Did it have to be this way?” becomes uncomfortable and is quietly pushed aside.
“What's important is that it's over.”
“You’re fine now, right?”
“There’s no point in thinking about it anymore.”
Here we see another function: the rush to close pain. Suffering becomes legitimate only up to a point — after which it becomes inconvenient. Not because it is unreal, but because it keeps something open that others would prefer to see resolved. The pearl must shine. If irritation persists, it looks like failure.
“Not everyone would have survived that.”
“You’re the kind of person who can handle it.”
“That’s what makes you different.”
These statements transform adaptation into character. What began as a survival strategy becomes proof of personal worth. The implicit message is subtle but powerful: if you endured it, it must have been right for you. The context disappears from the equation. Only the “strong,” capable individual remains.
“Everything happens for a reason.”
“The universe never gives you more than you can handle.”
Here emerges the human need for order, meaning, and certainty. As Joshua Greene describes in Moral Tribes, we are drawn to clear explanations and localized responsibility not because we are shallow, but because complexity is hard to tolerate. It is easier to believe pain had a purpose than to sit with the possibility that some contexts are simply unsafe, unfair, or incompatible with human needs.
These phrases do not explain what happened. They soothe the anxiety of the one speaking them.
And perhaps the most difficult to notice are the phrases we say to ourselves:
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Others had it worse.”
“If it affected me, I must be weak.”
Here, the pearl is fully internalized. The person has not only adapted but learned to deny the irritation itself. This is not healing. It is suppression. The cost does not disappear; it becomes invisible.
All these narratives share something in common: they redirect attention from what the context demanded to what the person produced. They are not always wrong. Sometimes they even help temporarily. But they become harmful when they are the only story allowed — when the pearl is all we are permitted to see.
If we admire pearls so much, how willing are we to look at the irritation that made them necessary?
What Stress Does to a Living System
Neuroscience leaves little room for romantic interpretations. The human nervous system is not built for chronic stress, constant pressure, and relational insecurity.
Robert Sapolsky’s work shows clearly that prolonged stress does not make us more adaptable; it makes us more rigid, more reactive, more limited in options. Under chronic stress, the body does not “learn” — it shifts into survival mode.
And yet, many survival responses are culturally reframed as personal flaws. Exhaustion becomes lack of motivation. Avoidance becomes self-sabotage. The need for control becomes rigidity. Freeze becomes laziness.
What happens when biological adaptation strategies are reinterpreted as character defects? What happens when the pearl is admired but the irritation denied?
Why We Prefer Pearls and Simple Explanations
As Greene argues, humans gravitate toward simple, linear explanations because certainty soothes us. It is easier to say “they didn’t try hard enough” than to consider that an entire context may be unsafe or incompatible with human needs.
This is not conspiracy thinking. We have done the best we could with what we knew. But now we know more. And knowing more brings responsibility.
Pearls are comfortable. They allow admiration without engagement, praise of outcomes without examination of processes. But what do we lose when we prefer distance over depth?
Control as a Layer of Nacre
Control is perhaps the most culturally admired pearl. It looks like strength, discipline, direction. It produces quick results and is easy to validate.
Biologically, however, control is often a defense mechanism — an attempt by the nervous system to reduce uncertainty. Chronic stress reduces neuroplasticity and cognitive flexibility. When we demand performance from an exhausted body, we do not obtain regulation; we obtain disconnection.
As Lisa Feldman Barrett suggests in How Emotions Are Made, the brain does not change through repeated constraint but through experiences safe enough to allow prediction recalibration. Only when we begin to anticipate safety can we clarify real needs and build contexts aligned with them.
So when we praise control, what are we validating — transformation, or the capacity to endure irritation longer?
Polished Pearls and Rejected Pearls
Not all pearls look the same. Some are smooth, discreet, “functional.” We call them resilience, maturity, strength. Others are rough, visible, uncomfortable. We diagnose them. We hurry them. We reject them.
We value adaptations that hide pain and dismiss those that reveal it. Perhaps because someone else’s pain requires something from us: presence, adjustment, change in context — not just advice.
It is easier to ask someone to change than to question the environment that continuously produces irritation.
Safe Relationship: The Environment Where Pearls Are No Longer Necessary
A person does not relinquish defense mechanisms because they are told they “no longer need them.” They relinquish them when the environment becomes sufficiently safe.
The brain is relational. As David Eagleman emphasizes, it functions through feedback, context, and continuity. No technique takes root in soil made of pressure, criticism, and urgency. Relationship is the environment; techniques are only seeds.
Before asking, “How do we change people?” perhaps we need to ask, “What kinds of contexts are we asking them to live in?”
Questions, Not Conclusions
Perhaps the human being is not a project to optimize but a system trying to survive. Perhaps many of the things we label as problems are pearls — intelligent strategies of adaptation to unsafe and imperfect contexts.
Maybe the question is not how to produce more beautiful pearls, but whether irritation must always precede them.
What would change if we saw people not through what they managed to isolate, but through what they were forced to endure? What would change if, instead of demanding regulation, we began by offering more safety?
What does safety look like concretely — beyond concepts and good intentions?
Are we capable of looking beyond surface aesthetics and first ensuring a solid foundation of security and calm? Can we build adaptation through effort, time, support, and predictability — so that adaptation becomes integration rather than defense?
Maybe we do not need faster conclusions.
Maybe we need better contexts.