Torture by guitar

I have been teaching myself to play the guitar; going on four weeks now. It is a painfull process and it is going ever so s-l-o-w-l-y. The guitar is an instrument of torture to the fingertips of the left hand. There is no way that you can play for very long, unless you have metal digits. The guitar I have has a narrow neck, so the precise placement of the fingers is important. I have little room for error.
By the time I tune the guitar, I am already in pain and there are guitarstring channels pressed into my fingertips. It is then a matter of just building caluses. Guitar string caluses are tough and shiney. They look alien like somebody got sloppy with the fingernail polish. I inspected the fingertips of a guitar-playing friend of mine. His fingertips are hard, shiney and pointy.
Intellectually I know three chords, but I can't switch from one to the other yet. I have to memorize the precise hand and finger placement to get all the strings to sound good. Buzzing sounds come from touching a string in the wrong place and a flat sound from not pressing down on the strings hard enough. I get alot of buzzing and thumpy sounding notes.
I have a C.D. of Spanish Guitar music and I have come to respect the rythm and precision of the guitarist. It has become awesome to me, how well that guy plays. This would never have come about unless I started this course of torture for my fingertips. Meanwhile I continue to whince and dream of playing "Amazing Grace". Maybe I should learn to play "Amazing Calluses" instead.