What is pain?
No single definition would serve to encompass the concept entirely. Pain can come from many sources. It can affect you in many ways. Drive you to many things.
For instance, the most mundane sort is from injury that scars the body. Physical pain. That seats itself in the flesh and burns with a sharp-edged fury. The most tangible source of pain. It needs no elaboration.
Another kind of pain is that which plagues the mind. Caused by shame, doubt, uncertainty and denial of ones' desires. This is the sort of pain that cuts away at our peace of mind and undermines our strength until we have no recourse left. It is at such junctions in life that we find ourselves making decisions that will haunt us when confronted with hindsight.
It is saddening sometimes. The thought of how sometimes we no longer make choices based on how we wish to achieve our goals, but for the purpose of avoiding pain. At how low we sink in our self - debasement on occasion, merely to make the pain stop.
Then there's the pain that life so insistently inflicts on us. The sorrow of loss, loneliness, separation and failure. These are feelings that can be expressed but never shared in truth. For though we may try to say to someone, "I feel lonely.", or , "I am a failure." , these aren't emotions that are so base as to be simply cosseted and soothed away by the attention of another. They are the pains that plague us so deeply as to never fully be sated, like vampires sucking blood, they rob us of our vigor and vitality and leave us empty and hollowed out.
Though one can argue that by avoiding all attachment to the material and rendering yourself aloof to the needs that humanity has, by association if nothing else, imposed on you, I refuse to believe that a rational way to go through life is by choosing to either become a monk and denying the entire point of worldly existence or living a very virtuous and god - fearing life merely on the offchance of eternal happiness in the afterlife
.
I mean no offense though. It's just that the odds really aren't worth the bet. You understand right?
In the end though it all works out to the same thing, regardless of what path you choose. All of us are so intractably human. You scramble through life like someone stumbling through a dark room and you keep stubbing your toes on the goddamn furniture.
To deny pain is to deny your existence. All the belief that you have that this is not just some vivid fucking hallucination is based purely on the fact that when I pinch you, it hurts.
When I put it that way it doesn't sound quite so bad does it? But then I'll have to make a confession.
I'm not exactly right in the head. And that's putting it delicately.
To get right to the point, I'm a fucking masochist.
Surprised, aren't you?
But you shouldn't be. And when I explain why, I think it'll make a whole lot of sense. At least to give you some perspective, if not radically shift your worldview.
I love pain. I FUCKING LOVE IT.
Why?
Because everytime I feel the inevitable sting of Life kicking me yet again in the balls, and as I squeal and clutch at myself and fall over, I keep this in mind.
It's my turn now.
My turn, to get the fuck up, dust myself off, and beat all twelve colors of shit out of Life so bad, not because I want anything out of it, but because I just cannot deny the savage joy I feel in pummeling the fuck out of this sneaky bastard that refuses to stop sucker punching me. I don't think there's a better rush than the certain knowledge that you are owning Life's ass, and don't you try to fucking deny that.
So if you think about it, I'm a masochist, because I'm a sadist. There's irony for you. You can't ever say life doesn't have a sense of humor.
And there you have it. My very simple method to dealing with the pain.
Make Life regret it.
