Food for Thought and Soul

Perpetual Pain

By: Rahim Mason 

     “Where I come from, pain is normalized and often ‘overlooked’ because everyone is dealing with something,” says Caesar as he takes a seat next to his rambunctious yet impressionable nephew.      Uncle Caesar, pretty well experienced in life yet fairly young, always has a good word and some gems to drop on his nephew. Caesar, well into his 30’s and fairly successful, has taken his fair share of lumps and learned from them but does his best to let Henry know what the real is. Henry, not yet out of high school, is tuned in and ready to learn some things and always has a question on standby. So, as Henry grabs his soda and takes a sip and says “ Uncle C, what’s the good word?” Caesar can tell he is attentively ready to store each gem of knowledge.

     “It’s like this nephew,” Caesar says as he sips some whiskey, “A lot of people in this confused world don’t understand that ain’t no running from pain, that pain stays on your heels like socks. The only way to escape pain is dealing with it head on like a collision.” Although Uncle C hadn’t cared much for school, he did firmly believe that us, the human race, should strive to learn something new every day. “Man, Unc I don’t think anyone comes close to your metaphors and message relay. But answer me this,” Henry pauses for a moment thinking intently to find the most precise wording. 

     “Gone ‘head nephew, let me see where you at with it,” Caesar says as he looks at Henry insightfully. After a few moments in thought Henry proceeds to say, “If you can’t escape pain, how do you deal with the quote unquote collision? I mean, if we’re continuing the metaphor, I think most people in their right mind would avoid a collision or more specifically the pain. If you prevent the collision or pain then you’re good, right?” Of course anyone in their right mind would want to be impervious to pain or collisions, that goes without saying.

     Caesar takes a second to mull over his nephew’s response, he then takes another sip of whiskey before answering, “I can’t deny your logic nephew but I gotta disagree with you. See pain is a reminder in life that you’re alive and you’re feeling things. Trying to avoid or prevent pain is what causes compound trauma. Think about this, on the light side of pain, if someone close hurts you deep and you don’t speak on it that shit will linger and fester until it eats you up inside. Whereas if you deal with it head on and voice your thoughts to that person, it’s now off your chest and if they’re halfway decent they’ll apologize and work to fix the pain.”

     With that being said, Henry allows the words to sink in to be processed. After a moment of contemplation and thought, Hen looks over at Uncle C and says “So basically you’re telling me that collisions or pain left unchecked can cause present pain and future pain, potentially. In the nutshell, you cause yourself perpetual pain when you try to escape or run from what you feel?” 

     Uncle C takes a good look at his nephew and says with a both smug and wisely distinguished smirk, “Yes, if you wanna nutshell it. But  what’s more important is that the root of most pain in the world is the perversion of love.”