PAIN

October 31st, I played tennis in a fashion that suggested I was doing my best Raffa imitation, as if that was remotely possible. I showered and put on my best cowboy wear, including proper western riding boots and spurs for authenticity, so that I could walk the mean streets collecting Halloween candy in Marin County.  The result was either a meniscus tear or a tendon strain. 

Whatever it was I could not put weight on my right leg and proceeded to hobble around while I attempted to move into a home with multiple flights of stairs.  As the pain persisted my general mood and personality deteriorated.  This caused me to think about pain.  We are not talking about the pain of heart ache as that is a completely different subject which we can address at a later time.

The media world has set us up for failure when it comes to dealing with pain.  Watch a James Bond movie.  James gets the shit kick out of him and in the next scene he is in a tux with some spectacular companion by his side.  Any video game will show you images of great pain being inflicted without the obvious resulting pain.  I found myself debilitated and functionally insufficient with just this small inconvenience.  Think of an ear ache or an eye infection and the resultant deterioration of your normal function.  Now think of people that are really hurt from war wounds, car crashes, mass shooting or illness.  We hear the words and are sad to hear about someone experiencing pain.  But pain, even on a small scale is overwhelming.  I cannot fully understand or appreciate what it must be like to experience severe pain day in and day out.  Yet there are many people in the world who experience this every day.  This experience must take over their lifes in such a way that they have no life. 

What about the people that inflict pain?  Does someone, like Putin, live in a pretend world where he neither experiences pain nor has the intellectual or emotional ability to understand pain.   Where does one put their humanity when ignoring the obvious pain they inflict either directly or by fiat?

My hope for Thanksgiving is that we all become a little more empathetic.  We must put aside the fantasy and ignorance and try to appreciate the all-consuming pain that so many people experience every hour.  Think of that ear ache or that tooth ache and multiply that enough times that you become addicted to what ever drug relieves that pain.  It is the contradiction of how we represent pain and the reality of pain.  I am thankful for a little inconvenience but hopeful that as humans we could become more understanding of pain.

Now where is my oxy???