imitation is still the top 1 language. inexplicit knowledge is the play. the reason you cannot resist feeling pain is not only because of neurons. the nuerons signals have been so creatively/inexplicitly matured such that defeating this kind of knowledge creation requires alot of explicit + inexplicit creativity.
Just thinking "its just nuerons giving signals in a sequence" is not enough to avoid the pain. pain and the nueron sequence has the explanation behind it which was done by alot of creativity and alot of implicit knowledge which is not easy to defeat.
Probably closest i have seen are soldiers. who can bear extreme levels of torture and not give information. who is truly devoted inexplicitly can have that level of creativity and knowledge creation in his mind to defeat the signals of pain
imitation heavy work like running startups or anything which involves people(better than you) is good for your 20's