There is so much to unpack and expand on here, I'm getting stuck not knowing where to begin...here goes:

Why does any extreme of the polarity

cause pain, struggle, or fear?

Because too many people have become polarized. Some call it polarity consciousness. Too many are not comfortable with nuance and individual thoughts and get stuck in labels and identies, so they only live at one extreme or another. My poem from last March, https://marcus17043.medium.com/nonconformists-are-not-rebels-fdacdb633a58, subtitled "But we are evolutionaries," contains this stanza:

Binary thinking

Polarity consciousness

Scourge of our species

Surf wavelengths between the poles

Coherence in the rainbow

I think I'll do serial comments rather than one complete one--will be easier for you to respond to (should you wish to)