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The pain and the pleasure of pain!

16 mai 2006, 00:00

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Why generally do we take for granted sensations of pleasure but react so violently and bitterly against any form of pain – physical, emotional, psychological….? People aspire to live a comfort controlled milieu , which is utopic seen that pain and pleasure are not diametrically opposed but operate together so closely that they at times, become almost blurred and indinguishable. Nature, ever economical, uses the same nerve sensors and pathways that convey messages of pain to carry also messages of pleasure. As such pain is an integral part of the natural rhythm of life much like the stark cold winter that eventually turns into the brightness of spring.

Pleasure lies not so much in avoiding pain at all cost as in understanding its role as a protective warning system, and harnessing it to work on your behalf, not against you. Fear like pain, serves as a warning system, only with the added benefit of functioning in advance of harm. Pain must hurt so as to demand action. Pain sensors loudly alert the body to danger and force one to concentrate on the problem area. Pain demands the attention crucial to our recovery. Suffering pain has not only protective value but also moral value. People undergo goal- oriented suffering or creative suffering willingly.

In other words a mother’s pain produces something with meaning. It’s creative suffering- a new life takes birth and for that reason, she can even contemplate repeating the experience. However a birth defective baby carries his/her pain forever. Suffering is also something you pick up by errors… and undergo emotional bitterness, relentless regret, anxious worry and troubling thoughts.

Suffering pain is the great equaliser. Nobody can escape from pain as everybody has the same basic structure of suffering, confusion and deception Mental and emotional suffering, confusion and deception. Take place only when you have become fixed in the partial. When still young, fear of being lost in a crowd or forgotten while waiting to be picked up or left alone with a dying parent, generates pain. When we are in emotional and physical pain,

we turn inward and examine what we feel and think. We become conscious that we are more than a body. It’s a correctable situation that calls for medication, rest or a change in a person’s lifestyle.

Can pain be mastered by technology? Many psychologists and psychiatrists are of opinion that technology while promoting a pain free environment, could condition mankind to an insulated sensation – deprived life. When you have no experience of pain, it is rather hard to experience joy.

The source of colour is vision but that which produces colour however manifests itself to the eye. The origin of taste lies in the palate but that which causes taste is never perceived by that sense. So is the case with pain. Laws governing “pain” have still to be explored. Who manufactures pain? Just as unhappiness does not come at you, it comes from you. So does pain.

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