is pain bad???

if someone gave you the option of living a life without any pain — would you say yes???

it turns out that there is a very rare disease in which exactly that happens... i was learning about the disease today — in the rarest forms its victims feel no pain at all... not even if their arm was hacked off with an axe... children who have this disease usually don’t live past age three. 

there was one boy who had this disease... he could feel no pain... his parents noticed the disease when — at age two — instead of chewing on toys to help with the teething process, he chewed on his own fingers, resulting in bloody stumps. 

you see, everything happens for a reason... this is especially true with our bodies... everything has a purpose — even pain... when we feel pain, our bodies are giving us a message... if our stomachs growl, it means we are hungry... if we feel a sharp pain in our hand, our reflexes pull our hand back...  essentially, we learn to interact with the world through pain — we learn to avoid the things which cause it... and those things that we avoid, are things that are not good for our growth. 

the young boy who has this disease doesn’t even know when to eat, because hunger is pain... his body does not sweat when he runs around, since exercise does not “hurt” him... yet, he feels everything else... he laughs when people tickle him... he experiences all the pleasure in the world, but none of the pain. 

so, a life without pain is not a good thing... pain, then, is not bad... it is what it is... the young boy’s disease is a great example of chinese philosophy — which teaches that you must know pain to know pleasure, and pleasure to know pain... it’s very yin and yang... it’s an important lesson taught by a devastating disease. 

i’ve read that if live was a river, with one side of the river pain and the other pleasure, it would be best to stay in the middle... if you get too close to either side, you slow down and get caught in the mud... it’s important to know that life will have pain and pleasure — but that it should be lived for neither... too much pleasure leads to addiction... too much pain eclipses the joy of life... 

 we have to learn to live with pain...