Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pain in Vain!

Came back home after a real messy day...the heat...and the heated arguments...the punctured tyre...Ayushi’s socio exam...Delhi traffic...all this and a lot more led to a severe headache. When I went to mum...She cuddled me. It wasn’t really helping though. What I needed was a Paracetamol and as I thought, the bitter worked well.

As I slipped into my bed I started doubting everything that I have ever known and experienced. I was so uneasy with the pain that it started bothering me beyond a point. But why was it so...shouldn’t we be so used to it?
From the very moment that the child enters the world, Pain begins, so much so that the process of giving birth itself is so painful. But what’s ironical is that all we are all looking for happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, comfort, ecstasy, peace and just forget the big P.

And as we all have heard about pleasure in pain philosophy, the whole erotic and dark side of pleasure. Very interestingly, the so called super negative experiences like that of Epilepsy too are accompanied with pleasure for some people. Like the Russian author Dostoyevsky famously said of his epilepsy 'I would experience such joy as would be inconceivable in ordinary life - such joy that no one else could have any notion of. I would feel the most complete harmony in myself and in the whole world and this feeling was so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss I would give ten or more years of my life, even my whole life perhaps.'

So is it that we are rationalising the Pain bit by looking at it positively and seeking pleasure out of it? Or there is actually something like pleasure in pain. This also tells me that then pleasure is the ultimate goal in its sense. So much so that it becomes hedonism.
So is it ok to be hedonistic? We fetching happiness from every nook and corner, be it mother nature or manmade stuff, all we are aiming at is happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, comfort and blah blah. We are trying every prospect to run away from every sort of physical and psychological pain that comes our way. An argument could be put forth saying that some people do embrace Pain.-- Let’s go deeper! Are they actually embracing or submitting to the big P because they simply want to experience pain? Or there is something bigger to this psyche?

While this thought was anyway bothering me, strangely I read this medical journal talking about the Abolitionist project. The project aims at abolishing pain from the face of earth!!...like WHAT??....Is that freaking possible? They call it the Hedonistic Imperative.

And now my headache is back... maybe I need sleep...Or wait till wait till this Hedonistic Imperative falls into place.
:)

9 comments:

Prateek Arora said...

For one to appreciate the real pleasure hidden inside pain ,the person has to embark upon a painful and excruciating journey...

Kavita said...

Read Siddhartha? Herman Hesse?

Luteous said...

@ Boozaholic
stop blabbering!.. :P

@ sigmund
no havnt as yet...but i know of it...wht abt it...??
btw...
is the shashi kapoor film 'siddhartha' on the same book?

Saim said...

actually we are all thirsty for love n pleasure, so to quench it we tend to even try n find some trivial happiness and joy in pain itself!!!
of course, it's actually like giving in to the pain, stop resisting it so that ultimately u may just find something likable in it.
did I make sense...I hope not:D

P.S. write more often:)

sanely insane said...

dont talk abt dostov...

man i read him and feel like i'm in the freezing streets amidst dark cold thoughts

Luteous said...

@saim
U completely make sense..
and more so when u tell me to write more often..
thanx for the snap!.. :)

Luteous said...

@sanely insane
welcome to purple crayola..

i second your feeling abt him..

but, often i feel he is one soul...who is OUTSANE..in this completely INSANE world.. :)

Saim said...

so wen do u start following my advice:P

snap???...*bewildered look*

Luteous said...

oh-ho ...itna bewilder hone ki baat nai hai...!!
i meant, sometimes i need people or things to snap at me..so that i get into action! :)