If the sun does shine and the rain does fall,
I give thanks; I’ve had my sight to see through it all.
And I’ve felt pleasure, and I’ve felt pain
And I know now that I can never be the same….
Pain and pleasure are the two emotions that define the individuals we become and even decide the course of our lives. Passion arising from grief and the ecstasy arising out of happiness are two of the strongest emotions that you can feel. It is these emotions that make us human because life can never touch a person who does not cry when he is sad or smiles when he is happy. The various reasons that make us cry and laugh become our reasons to live. Our experiences with pleasure and pain alter us, sometimes irrevocably. It is your job to keep a calm head through times of pain as well as pleasure and take good things out of both experiences.
You Cannot Escape Pain
Kari, from the graphic novel of the same name was very right when she had opined that pain is the chorus of the song of life. Kari, the female protagonist of this graphic novel by Amruta Patil had tried to end her life by jumping from the top of a building to put an end to her pain but the sewer water below saved her and she had to crawl back into the fray of living. The whole novel sheds light upon how she deals with pain and how it keeps coming back – through memories of her beloved Ruth and loss of yet another friend Angel. In the end Kari realizes that there is no escaping pain and so she decides to clean the sewer waters that saved her life – a metaphorical attempt to make the best of what her pains had given her by making peace with it.
“What does not kill you makes you stronger”. If you endure pain and deal with the source of it with all the strength you have then you will soon emerge out of it as a very strong person who has learnt some valuable life lessons.
Pain Leads the Way to Pleasure
Like all things, even pain eventually comes to an end and when it leaves you, it rewards you amply. However, pain never leaves a person overnight. Rob from the 1996 movie “Swingers” puts the whole process of how pain leaves our lives very beautifully in words when he said – “It’s like, you wake up every day and it hurts a little bit less, and then you wake up one day and it doesn’t hurt at all”.
Yes that is exactly how pain leaves you after taking a huge test of your patience and giving you probably one of the worst times of your lives. But the good thing is that pain does leave and when it does so it paves the way for the coming of pleasure. Pain is a very important part of healing which is why it only stops hurting when you are ready to stop grieving. Once the grief is gone, your doors get opened to all kinds of happiness automatically and after being sad for so long, even the smallest of things such as a beautiful sunset or a favorite song will please you amply – such are the after effects of pain. This concept can also be explained in terms of physical pain – from the time your wound stops hurting, it begins to get recovered and soon it is no more.
Pleasure is the Strongest Driving Force
If you think about it, the attainment of pleasure is our main motive behind doing whatever we do. We study to get good jobs that will provide our pleasures with financial security. There are many who hate their jobs but they still go to work because of the money that they get at the end of the month which is a source for different kinds of pleasures. We read a story book because it gives us pleasure; we fall in love because love can make us happy and there are times when people also make themselves fall out love if they feel that there is no pleasure in their relationships. Yes, there are times when we do something for other’s pleasures but we only do it if that person’s happiness brings a smile on your faces. It is true that pleasure is our inspiration and motivation behind every big and small decision that we make. Sometimes we even endure the most difficult of hardships and the most unbearable pains because of the comforting thought that pleasure await us the end.
That Time When Pleasure and Pain Becomes One
It often happens that the source that gives us pleasure often becomes a cause for a lot of pain. Lines from the song “Pain and Pleasure” by Judas Priest are exemplary in this context – “For all the times that I’ve cried, You give me pain, but you bring me pleasure”. This song is the story of a man who is stuck with a woman who torments him and he wishes to throw her out of his life but he cannot because that woman is also the source of his biggest pleasure. During times like these, we just have to trust our instincts that tell us what to do. But always remember there is only so much pain that humans can take and they can only take it till the pain does not flood over the pleasures. This can also be explained with the example of smoking. Chain smokers will tell you how the smoke between their fingers is their ultimate source of pleasure but it is also the culprit that turns their pink lungs black and kills them. This is why most smokers decide to quit cigarettes when they realize that they are being drawn close to an early death because when this realization strikes them, no amount of pleasure from cigarettes can urge them to sacrifice their lives.
Pain and pleasure will weave intricate patterns in your life and one day when you will view your entire life in retrospect you will be able to view those patterns and understand how they all make sense because they brought you to the place where you would be standing at.
