Why does consciousness suffer given it can be in bliss all day

Pain, fear, and anxiety are deeply ingrained in human consciousness because they served critical survival purposes for human ancestors. These emotions heightened awareness of danger, encouraged caution, and motivated actions to protect oneself and others.

Some brain structures have evolved with a smaller amygdala, where fear is processed. Are you asking if it is possible for evolution to take this further where fear is non existent, while consciousness and executive function can still evaluate and action against danger rationally or logically?

Fundamentally (imho), there are two pathways for exploration on this topic: brain structure and chemistry, and stoicism, meditation, and understanding the human condition (which may include a spiritual component, such as buddhism). “To be, or not to be, that is the question."

We could be in perpetual bliss, but then we'd be passive. Members of the community that raise their 'discomfort' bar to whatever the current environment provides, become more proactive and thus increase their calories, social situation, ultimately their reproductive fitness.

We're in pain and fear because nature tuned us to ride this thin edge - unhappy but not too unhappy, in pain but not (usually) in debilitating pain. So we get off our butts and find a mate/home/food/safety in greater abundance (than our peers).

"Without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned."

The true answer is survival. But the more poetic answer is that quote. Or the plethora of others that offer similar sentiments.

AFAICT debugging the subroutines responsible for the emotional set point isn't possible yet, so a definitive answer will have to wait 'til another day.

You are interpreting. And what you are describing is most likely not a function or the result of consciousness.

Pain and fear exist entirely as the return of the CNS. Your consciousness taps into this function to give those interpretations of sensations with external and internal origins properties that support your cognitive processing so that you can make sense (without necessarily creating order) of them in your past, current and future contextS and get to the roots of pains and anxieties to adequately handle them in order to refocus on thriving.

It's like that pain in my leg that dissolves when I stretch and massage it with a Lacrosse ball or something. Or that other pain in my neck and shoulders that disappears when I train through the pain and then massage and stretch those muscles. Some of the things I do to get rid of my pain go against conventional knowledge but I do them because I learned to listen to my intuition which in turn learns from those external and internal sensations and my minds cognitive processing of these sensations.

People with low (levels) of awareness or low consciousness - in most cases entirely the result of stress and or low stimulation - just drop a pill and never get to the roots of the issue causing the pain. That's true even for people with higher education. And many of them have painfully bad medical professionals in their area or "class" and or are treated badly because 'fascism' ...

So getting and or remaining in a state of bliss is quite possible. And you don't have to meditate into it. All you need to do is to learn to understand what your mind and body tell you via senses and consciousness and then find ways to act on this information by getting to the roots of your issues. ( Dreams don't have anything to to do with any of this, btw, not necessarily, because you are sleeping and your senses are mostly off and your consciousness is in an entirely different state )

No spirituality involved at all. If you do take some pills, use the resulting peace of mind to do the workout, the stretch, the processing of painful memories or thoughts. If you take the pill, don't add distractions.

But that's really just another interpretation ;], one that can probably make a few bucks wherever. Feel free to throw me a coin if you do use any of this commercially ;]

Your consciousness is also capable of convincing you that the table in front of you is only a simulation, that it doesn’t really exist.

Now, smack your simulated head into that simulated table as hard as you can, and your simulated body will explain that suffering is inherent to the act of living and no matter what your consciousness tries to do to delude itself, this will always be true. The consciousness, at best, is along for the ride, pondering the meaning (if any) of that suffering.