The Enigma of Pain

5 letters, one word
Yet in it, it holds an entire world
Throughout your life you hear that different words can have different and at times contrasting and conflicting meanings to different people
This deceptively simple word is a testament to that seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon
Pain?
What is Pain?
Science would tell us that it doesn't really know
Oh they know what can cause it
Things,items or aspects that try to impose themselves on our body can at times elicit a response from the body that makes it go, STOP
Don't do this
This is not welcome
And the sensation of that feeling of invasion is what we may describe as Pain
At least physical pain
Emotional pain is a trickier concept
We humans are a weird bunch
We can be deeply affected by things of the immaterium, things that are, in some senses of the word, not real
However our body does not really know how to differentiate it from the "real" things and so purely emotional inputs can sometimes cause pain that is as real and debilitating as any caused by the most debilitating of injuries
So why did I claim that Science doesn't really know what pain is?
Well that's because it doesn't
Oh it knows what can cause pain, what results from pain but what it hadn't yet figured out is what pain in itself is?
What is the chemical reaction that can be dubbed pain?
There have been efforts of categorising pain as a singular emotion, as one thing that happens to everyone in a similar way and those haven't really succeeded
Pain is a reaction to stimuli, usually external, but the exact reaction is one that is still shrouded in mystery
Similar people in similar circumstances may have shockingly different reactions to the same stimuli
Oh we know 'Why' pain is
Its a klaxon that our body rings when it senses something amiss
However, what we don't know is what type of klaxon it is and why the nature and quality of the sound differs from person to person

Let's leave that digression for a moment and focus on what I came here to talk/think/ruminate about

For a long long time thr singular superpower I always wished for was the ability to bear pain
I know I know but stick with me for a while, I think this might be interesting ( or don't, there's really no obligation here)
Sounds kind of stupid right
That bloke can fly, that other bloke breaks the laws of physics at breakfast and what can you do?
Well I can take a boo boo and not cry about it
Let us not talk, or even think, about what this says about me here ok

Having the ability to bear pain, what does that mean?
Well, to me at least, it meant the ability to have as much hurt be dished out on you and still be able to stand through it
At a later stage in life I revised this and added, in capital letters no less, that this includes all sorts of emotional pain and distress as well
What I sought, or dreamed of, was the ability to be able to shrug off or bear whatever it is that world or my own psyche threw at me and come out if it if not unphased then not broken
To face adversity and hardship of the most dramatic sorts and still be standing later
To have the ability to weather storms that would make a normal person, someone I have a lot of respect for, crumble to dust

What can I say, I have always had a sort of a martyr complex
Couple that with a disturbing level of masochism and it seems like this was an inevitable point to get to

A few clarifications then are important here
What does this look like?
Well the first thing to make clear is what this doesn't look like
This is not, and I cant repeat this enough, an inability to feel things
One of my longest standing fears is the ability to not feel
That stands for all kinds of things, pain, love, sometimes even fear
One thing that I have always been scared of is losing the ability to feel
Younger me did not realise this initially but teenage me quickly caught on to the fact that the most logical way in which you become immune to the vagaries of pain is through not feeling it
Out came the pen of my imagination to make a careful annotation to this particular scene:
"Ability to bear pain but also feel everything from the smallest of scratch to the biggest of wounds"
There we go, disaster averted

This dream or fancy is one that I find myself going back to time and time again
It has this most alluring of charms to it
At my lowest points it is a sort of haven that I escape to
A place where all of my demons become toothless
Where I can withstand the most horrifying of all circumstances?

One thing that has started to concern me recently is what this says about me
A person whose fantasy is not the elimination of his worries but the power to bear them
The one place where I could be all powerful, I chose to be in constant suffering
Maybe I'm inspired by that most famous of all figures, a certain Jesus of Nazareth
What can I say, I have always had a high opinion of myself

One thing that I'm coming to a understanding is how pain makes us be
Sometimes it becomes so pervasive that, like me, you can't even think of a world without it
Other times your pain and you become so intertwined that you cant think of yourself as absent from it
It is a part of you, has become foundational to what you are as an individual
Other times you start obsessing over it so hard that you become blind to everything else until all that you see is your pain and you, alone in a dark room

To kinda conclude this rambling and pointless diatribe, pain is weird
Its, wait for it, so painful (Sorry but I had to)
However, as some might say, pain is proof of existence
It is the evidence that all those philosphers have been seeking
The evidence to prove that the world outside of us exists and is not just the fanciful meanderings of an individuals mind
Pain
A sensation that every human interaction seems to be laden with
Proof that others apart from us exist
Because why would we seek to imagine a world where we put this on ourselves
Where we are in constant misery
We wouldn't would we?
I dont know
Maybe we would
Say anything else about pain but say this, it is a delicious sensation
It kills you and smothers you and makes you wish for a final end
But it 'is'
And sometimes in our life we just want something
Something real
And nothing is our more real than pain
When all the world is fuzzy and indistinct, it brings a sort of clarity
But thats a characteristic very unique to self inflicted pain
When imposed by another it is a flame of reality that burns everything out

Sorry for the weird and disturbing digression

So, pain is weird
Pain is wonderful
Pain is necessary
Pain is all that there is

What else is there to say?

Who knows?
I don't