Pain Reconciled by Love

PAIN: THE IMMINENT

These poems all deal with certain types of pain. The first poem is kind of a prequel, written to give the reader an idea of what happened to me in the past several years of my life. All the ones following have to do with what I was feeling in the exact moment I wrote it.

We, as humans, have to deal with pain a certain type of way. Animals are used to pain because they are either prey or predators, or both. Animals are accustomed to pain, and even though for many of us, watching an animal being eaten is sad or uncomfortable; to them it's just the circle of life. Yes, animals feel pain, but they can't think about their pain the way we do.

I have this stone art piece in my bathroom, which I've had for several years that says, "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." To me, it means that no matter what we do in life, we will have to deal with pain. However, it's up to us if we choose to use that pain to better ourselves, learn, and move forward, or use that pain to writhe in agony and say, "woe is me." How did humans get over that bump in the road back then? How, before medicine was even a thing, did humans deal with sadness, bitterness, hopelessness? Well, let me tell you a few of the possibilities on how our ancestors dealt with it.

Way back when we had to work for our food and shelter— through hunting, fishing, or farming to provide nutrition—many humans didn't really think about their sadness or hopelessness as much, probably because we had to provide for our family, and for ourselves. Working to survive was all it was back then. Money was viewed differently, and farming and hunting were the ways thousands of years ago. Now-a-days we see people dreading and hating work, especially because the pay we get, for millennials, like me, and the younger generations, or the ones who did not have the chance to go to college, is not something to live off of. Minimum wage is slavery—in a sense.

Another way many humans dealt with their sad and bitter pain back then was wars. We can have an entire conversation about how wars are terrible and outlandish and just not intelligent, but there is one main thing I want to say about wars: We are the only animal, out of every single animal on earth, that starts to kill off our own kind because our feelings are hurt, or because we don't agree with what another country, land, or people is doing with their own life. How bitter, judgmental, and disgusting is that? Please, think about that for a moment, and then decide if you actually agree with war. Now yes, war is always going to be happening, now, until the end of time, so of course I will support our troops and those who fight for our freedom. But I will never support mindless killing. Never.

Humans have thoughts. Descartes, one very well-known philosopher, said "I think, therefore I am," and though we can have an entire debate on that, I only want to say one thing:

Because we think, because we feel, because we care: We Are.