SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT PAIN

 

          SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT PAIN

“Pain” is defined as “a signal in our nervous system that something may be wrong. It is an unpleasant feeling, such as a prick, tingle, sting, burn or ache. It may be sharp or dull. It may come or go, or may be constant.

There are also types of pain like physical, mental, emotional or neuropathic. They may dull or acute. Some respond to medicines quickly, others continue for long and may even become incurable.

            Almost every person experiences pain in one’s life. There is a famous proverb : ‘No pain, no gain’ which means you need to suffer if you want to achieve something.

Some synonyms of pain are : hurt, sorrow, grief, sadness, unhappiness, distress, misery, wretchedness, anguish, affliction, woe, agony, torment, torture, bother, vexation, worry and irritation. These are the general experiences of life from infancy to old age.

Lord Gautam Buddha  (563 - 483 B.C.) said: Pain is the outcome of sin and suggested an eightfold path to get rid of it.

 According to Arthur Henry Hallam (1811-33), the English subject of Lord Tennyson’s In Memorium : Pain is the deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain and suffering has always seemed more real and holy than any other.”

            The English bishop Thomas Bentham (1513-79 ) had this to say  : Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand, the standard of right and wrong; on the other, the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to their throne. “

            Pain is not always the result of some hurt or wrong doing. It is there in a different form at the time of our birth and then in old age  which the English poet  William Shakespeare (1564-1616) calls in his poem The Seven Ages Of Man  :

Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.    

                                                ********

G.R.Kanwal

13 November 2024