koffl next back Author : Jan B. Hurych
Title : PARALLAXES
Essay: ODE TO PAIN (9)



Ode to pain.

I am sitting and writing. Thousands of mysteries are meanwhile being solved all around the world, but I am just sitting and thinking about my own pains. Not only that - I am already thinking what happens when all my pains will cease and I will be no more. However, that is not the mystery I am really trying to solve, at least not while I am in this world - if there would be any need for me to solve that at all, which I sincerely doubt. Maybe there is no real mystery in it, maybe "Mort est simillis sommo" and our death is really just like falling in sleep. . .

Then I will cross the threshold. I don't mind if there is no joy for me over there. Joy is just a sign that I am all right, that everything is - so to say - quite normal. Joy is really very simple thing: for smiling, they say, we need actually only one third of muscles we otherwise need for expressing the grimace of pain. Of course, pain has more degrees, stages or shades if you will . . .

I could name all kinds of pain I intimately know, talk about them for hours, maybe days, and I believe you will never be bored. I could describe pains spasmodic, excruciating, choking, stabbing, pinching, strangling, tearing, cutting pains and pains that lead to concussion or coma. And there are also mental paints, creative pains and pains when you are betrayed or deserted and of course the pains of love. Pains of sacrifice and of ingratitude, pains of stupidity and also stupid pains.

Oh yes, I know pain that is pretended, denied, hypochondria tical or suppressed, the pain which leaves you and comes back again, only to hurt you ten times more. We all know the pains of offence or ridicule, the pains which we cause to each other or even to ourselves, the pains of foolishness and the pains of reason. Then there is a pain which subsides, but leaves deep scars, so deep we normally cannot see them. There is a pain which wakes up slowly, like a lover after a long night of lovemaking - the pain which then grabs you with much stronger passion and does not let go. There is a pain "till death parts us" and I should not forget to mention the one which surpasses them all: the pain from pain . . .

The disappointment of parents, the desperation of children, the suffering of mistresses - and the wives as well - the pains of mine, yours, ours and theirs. Pains personal or social, pains of crowds, but also pains of solitude, pains contagious, permanent or temporary, some even incurable. And at the end, there comes the last pain of them all, the final one, the closing act . . .

And so we are standing up to pain and fighting it and sometimes, we are protectors of those who are not able - or do not want - to fight any more. Sometimes we win, but next time we are defeated again or simply give up and yield to it. Thrown down to ground, we raise again, only to fall under even heavier blow. Yes, pains, we all have them; they bring us closer or draw us apart, they brake old friendships and help us to make new ones.

"I gave you the pain," said once the most powerful of Gods and He Himself might not realize what kind of gift it is. But He gave us plenty: a lot to some and even more to others; pains big, bigger and gigantic. And so we turn to Him in our hour of misery and say our prayers. We kneel and beg Him: "In this painful hour, have a mercy on us." Instead of thanking Him for it - we curse our troubles. We should be grateful for our pains; they faithfully stay with us for the duration of our lifetime: we are born in pain and die with it.

So this is my philosophy of pain: I feel sorry for pain instead for me. Still, one thing is true: if I never had a tooth ache, I might never experience the great feeling when the pain stops. And there you have it: for every joy we have to pay, but the pain is - mostly, anyway - free of charge. So let's enjoy it while it lasts!