HomeTag pain (Page 3)

Tag: pain

Mind-Crush21 Comment

A Foolish Consistency?

We’ve all made a set of decisions or hold a set of assumptions about what works for you; how you’ve constructed a life.  In this, we’ve all made different choices.  For some, their primary dedication is to their career or a cause.  Others dedicate themselves to the family that surrounds them.  Some choose to not have children.  There are many, many large and small decisions that we make that we expect to be more or less persistent.  These so-called life choices frame a lot of  our life’s experience.  Who we primarily interact with, whom we love, and the character of the challenges we more or less intentionally face.  There are times when it’s really hard to sort out whether sticking to one of these life choices is a mark of foolish consistency or a wise application of what one knows works.

Sometimes life serves up challenges to our choices.  They can shake you to your foundation.  And, even though we view these principles as the rock upon which our lives are built, we may find that our foundations are easily cracked. I honestly don’t know if reinforcing and re-cementing the cracks is the wise action or letting things break apart.  With my old construction of my life, I found that the patch works were too extensive.  I had no choice but to tear down the ramparts and start again seated firmly on fresh soil.

And… and then I fell in love.  Yes, again.  But, sometimes head does in fact flip over heels.  Unfortunately, that relationship fell apart under the weight of polyamory. A rare and special love had to end because she’s monogamish and I’m a flaming polymore. We tried mightily to build a bridge across that divide. A crazy love bridge to support and cradle our hearts high above the rapids below. We never made it across.  But, somewhere in the middle, the bridge clearly collapsing, I wondered “if poly can cause me this much pain, is it really the right thing? Am I sticking to something that sounds good in the vague hope that something just right will come along while ignoring the bounty in front of me?” (more…)

Mind-Crush22 Comments

On Revenge and Forgiveness

There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.
Josh Billings

Pain is too often the result of actions of people very close to us.  At times these actions are made with the intent of causing us pain.  Other times, we make bad decisions that we know will result in other’s pain – but that’s not our direct intention.  Still other times, we’re surprised with the impact of our words and actions. Regardless of intent, the pain is real, sometimes causing tremendous suffering.  What are we to make of this?

I’ve lately been thinking quite a bit about the pain we cause each other – and suffering more generally.  Most of this reflection has been focused on being willing to look squarely at the pain I have caused others; to not hide from it.  Accept it as real.  And then…

…forgive myself for it. (more…)

Mind Crush4 Comments

On avoiding suffering

Starting with the idea that without pain, there is no joy.  I believe this, but I have found it utterly unhelpful in getting out of the mindset.  The mindset being one of minimizing pain, smoothing out the rough patches in life, etc.  I tend to think that this is a core part of the American Psyche.  It’s the idea that we can out work or innovate our way out of suffering of all kinds.  It seems to be viewed as, in essence, the fruit and chief signal of our superiority in the world to not need to deal with the petty and other cares that assault the ROW (Rest of World).

So many aspects of our culture in my eyes are linked to this idea.  From rampant consumerism (if I buy that BMW or those shoes or ??, then I can be happy) to recreational medicine (if I don’t look like I’m getting closer to death, perhaps I can avoid it all together) to an endemic lack of will to tackle big social or economic problems (blame the victim mentality of various stripes).  From that point of view, I could not have imagined that “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” ethos could be so pernicious.

The basic tendency to move away from pain or discomfort and move towards pleasure makes it very difficult for the idea of “without pain there is no pleasure” to land on people.  Or, to personalize, it resonates with me intellectually but is wholly unhelpful to me emotionally or psychically.  I might be willing to accept somewhat reduced positive affect to avoid the negative kind.  I believe lots of people would make that trade-off.  They’ll vote for emotional stability or, perhaps more precisely, lower variance in emotionality over truly experiencing the pains and joys of the world.  The fear of getting stuck or lingering too long or being permanently scared by those negative experiences keeps many people stuck in repression of all kinds. (more…)