Thoughts on pain

Grizzly · 2011-04-08

Saw this today and it got me to thinking. Last year I was on an 8 out of 10, but yes, according to this it was maybe a 1, and when I think about the pain that friends have gone through with cancer over the last year I have nothing to complain about. But on the physio table today for my weekly torture session, and I don't use that term lightly, I got to thinking about how (and I don't know any other way of putting this) intimate pain can be. No, I'm not going all S&M on you here, my motto isn't "No Pain, No Gain", it's "No Pain, No Pain". But I can see how for some people pain is what can ground them to this existence, provide proof of their tangible reality. Maybe thats what the attraction is to boxing and the more violent sports. When all you can focus on is pain your life is made far simpler and your concerns are reduced to a singular focus. It's that focus that is lacking in most lives and I think it can be for some people an intoxicant - much like "falling in love" provides a simiilar all-consuming focus. I've gone to this weird space in describing my pain. The absence of pain is not being pain-free for me at the moment, it's like there's a void where the pain used to be, a receptacle there that can be filled up again with pain, a potential for it to be held again. Something like that Spinal Tap dial that can go to 11, it's down really low but somehow I know that it can be cranked up again. Oh well, time get a tea and get to work.

474 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by GaReb770, Apr 10, 2011

Grizzly

Discussion Starter · Apr 8, 2011

Saw this today and it got me to thinking.
 
<a class="H-lightbox-open" href="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/82090/width/1000/height/800/flags/" target="_blank"><img alt="pain_rating.png" class="lightbox-enabled" data-id="16642" data-type="61" src="http://www.kickrunners.com/content/type/61/id/16642/width/740/height/217" style="; width: 740px; height: 217px"></a>
 
 
Last year I was on an 8 out of 10, but yes, according to this it was maybe a 1, and when I think about the pain that friends have gone through with cancer over the last year I have nothing to complain about.
 
But on the physio table today for my weekly torture session, and I don't use that term lightly, I got to thinking about how (and I don't know any other way of putting this) intimate pain can be. No, I'm not going all S&M on you here, my motto isn't "No Pain, No Gain", it's "No Pain, No Pain".
 
But I can see how for some people pain is what can ground them to this existence, provide proof of their tangible reality. Maybe thats what the attraction is to boxing and the more violent sports.
 
When all you can focus on is pain your life is made far simpler and your concerns are reduced to a singular focus. It's that focus that is lacking in most lives and I think it can be for some people an intoxicant - much like "falling in love" provides a simiilar all-consuming focus.
 
I've gone to this weird space in describing my pain. The absence of pain is not being pain-free for me at the moment, it's like there's a void where the pain used to be, a receptacle there that can be filled up again with pain, a potential for it to be held again. Something like that Spinal Tap dial that can go to 11, it's down really low but somehow I know that it can be cranked up again.
 
Oh well, time get a tea and get to work.

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Grizzly

Discussion Starter · #3 · Apr 8, 2011

Thanks Jebba,
 
Interesting thoughts. I think that they point to our essential alone-ness as human beings. Much as we can't know the depths of pain that someone experiences, we can't say that we know the heights of love or joy either. And yet we value those moments, perhaps illusory, where be believe that we cross the barriers between us and share our humanity.
 
"Compassion", to suffer with, we prize as a virtue. I don't think that I am alone when I say that I would gladly take on the pain of my wife or children if it meant that they would be spared. And yet when my wife mentioned the same to me when I was in the depths of it last fall I was horrified at the thought of her having to undergo even a fractio of it.
 
I was also thinking about how strange our vocabulary becomes when we face the extremes of pain. It becomes almost religious: "exquisite", "transcendent", I know that there will likely be worse physical pain that I will go through in my life, but I don't know that we have the words to describe it. Then again, maybe we don't have the words to describe any extreme of the human experience.

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Grizzly

Discussion Starter · #8 · Apr 9, 2011

Was there something wrong with the ovary?

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