Pain is Information
Pain is information. We feel pain, because we are experiencing the influx of information that comes with our lives. Pain is the understanding that we are alone in our existance. Pain is the perception that we are alone. It is even more painful, then, when we realize we are not alone at all; that there is a diaspora of other pain sufferers, who look out for us unexpectedly. It is the pain of gratitude that endears us to the unexpected kindness of people we don’t know. Understanding is pain. / We’re in a recession. So many friends my age, myself, and those older than us have lost their jobs, their livelihoods. And there is new pain. / I’d stumbled out of bed again at 4 in the afternoon and the sun had settled into an exhausted golden brown froth over the hillside. I’d spent the previous 6 months, trying, and failing to get another IT job. There’s a great song whose lyrics go something like, “today, we escape, we escape.” I think it’s radiohead. So I packed my bag and left for home. And later, I took 10 sleeping pills and began to worry about the drowsiness coming over me, the pain of not being able to not quite stay awake. Soon after, it was the pain of trying to throw them all up. / Then, I went back to sleep for another 10 hours and I felt no pain.
