Lessons From Pain

Note: I realize that the theme of this piece overlaps some with part of what I covered in the last piece, so there is a bit of redundancy. I apologize for that in advance but I think there is still some value to be found here additional to what I wrote before, so perhaps look at this like a spiritual part two. Without further adieu, enter the piece…

After something that in the broad scheme of things might seem totally trivial, I’ve realized that perhaps in some unexpected ways, pain can invite lessons through introspection otherwise put off due to distraction. Recently an ear infection, of all things, that I let escalate up to a point of being in more pain that I had experienced in some time, certainly not the most, but not pleasant to be sure, taught me a lot by forcing me to be present beyond what might occur in my more ordinary moments. While it is perhaps straightforward to understand the basis for pain from a recovery standpoint, as the pain signal and accompanying inflammation “encourage” the body to heal, and to some extent from an evolutionary standpoint, as the pain pushes us to engage in certain behaviors that discourage further injury, or at least alleviate the pain, the question of why a particular amount of pain is present remains in my mind. One of the most significant and interesting observations of pain in my recent experience was the way in which my thoughts could rapidly change from positive in a moment of mild discomfort to frantic and anxious and seeking alleviation in a moment of great pain. My primary inquiry around the nature of pain, lies in what value there is in having a sort of un-ignorable signal?

As I mentioned in my piece on mortality and other things, something that these more extreme and uncomfortable signals and experiences in our lives do, is give us the necessity to reevaluate ourselves and our lives. An observation that carries much weight I think, is that regardless of whether I’m suffering from psychological pain, or physical pain, any remedy that offers a band-aid like solution serves as a reason not to be present, and to not urgently explore the root causes of my issues. In other words, I think one of the primary upsides of pain, if we want to call it that, is that it forces us to be aware of how we feel and what we are thinking in general and it provides a laser clarity that cuts out everything that is irrelevant to getting out of pain. As cutting out the noise to find the signal is something that I think about quite often, one of the great lessons that I draw from pain and grief is that life-wrenching experiences are a fast track to clarity and self-honesty. Sufficient pain is the thing that drives us in the short term to take our hand off the stove, but also in a broader sense to analyze how we are put in positions to have our hand on stoves to begin with. Pain encourages me I find, to think clearly and really dig deep about what habits I may have that are holding me back, or about what things I have yet to do that I should and so on. As someone with a moderate autoimmune condition that has produced a recurrent and chronic sort of pain, something that I think about a lot is what I’ve lost or not done due to masking the pain with quick fixes? It may be easy to merely take more pills in my case, but the truth is that distraction or alleviation from the pain, is taking away not only a symptom but also an important signal and motivator to hack whatever the deeper problem actually is.

As usual I could say more on this topic, but the main takeaway from my perspective is that while an egregious amount of pain may be unhelpful and encourage self-destructive behavior, a certain sweet spot of pain may also serve as a noise canceler if you will, and can be instrumental in tackling problems properly. Maybe not a straightforward takeaway from this piece but hopefully this was useful in some way and I hope you will be well.

Orion Aeneas Webster,

FourthEyeBlog author