We live in a world that shoves pills and cliches down our throats to make the pain go away. Our remedy for suffering is to paint it gold, or better yet-- deny it even exists.
Each time I tell my story of pain to a new doctor, it’s always the same routine. They hardly listen as their eyes lazily scroll through a list of medications on a screen, finding the one I haven’t tried yet. Last Thursday, I pleaded to my primary care physician, “It isn’t fibromyalgia. That is just a pretty label they slap on me so I stop whining.” He actually laughed. I continued, “There is something so wrong with my body. I am so sick every day. There is a root cause and we just need to find it.” What I got in response was the same rehearsed lecture I’ve heard a thousand times before-- about how finding the cause of migraine is virtually impossible, and the best we can do is find a preventative medication that reduces them blah blah blah… Oh, and you seem depressed too-- should I also prescribe Zoloft? All doctors are the same that way-- giving me some meaningless label and prescribing some temporary band-aid drug-- that's it.
The funny thing is that I actually participate in the same game the doctors play. I, too, stick duct-tape over the gigantic hole in the wall. When family members or friends ask about my health, I tell the truth, but not without sprinkling a little glitter over the hurt. I’ll say something like, “No. Things are not getting better. But I still have hope that this new doctor can help,” when I am actually drowning in a pit of hopelessness and wondering why I even still bother with doctors. In the company of others, I often deny my true pain in order to make others feel as pleasant as possible. Yet, ignoring it doesn’t take it away and often just makes my sorrow build up faster.
When the physical and emotional pain becomes too much, I think of my favorite literary genre: dystopian novels. I think of the fictional worlds that results from the elimination of pain. What results is not goodness, as one would expect, but actually-- the worst place one could possibly imagine.
In The Giver by Lois Lowry, they kill babies and throw their bodies down garbage chutes. They don’t do this in some grand display of hate, but even worse-- with a casual and cold indifference. This scene comes as a horrific shock to readers as their society seemed so bland and mild up until this point. We see the protagonist, 12 year-old Jonas, live a tragically montonous life. His schooling is old-fashioned and rigid. His nuclear family sits at dinner each night as they take turns sharing their feelings. We watch his father, whose job title is “Nurturerer,” care for a baby with tenderness and what we assume is love. Things seem so humdrum that when I used to teach this novel to middle-schoolers, it was hard to maintain their interest in the first chapters.
Once Jonas meets “The Giver” and receives the memories of all the world, things quickly turn. We learn that in this world, they have no color-- they’ve been seeing everything in black and white this entire time without anyone (characters or readers) realizing it. We learn that members of this society (except “The Giver” and “The Reciever”) have never had a sunburn. Have never experienced starvation. Have never felt the deep despair of losing a loved one. This all may sound pretty good until you realize the flip side. They have also never felt the pleasant warmth of the sun at all. Or physical attraction. Or love. Jonas realizes that the “feelings” he and his family have shared over dinnertime his entire life were never true feelings at all. The members of this society have no genuine emotions because they have no concept of life or death. And then, in the tragically ironic climax, Jonas watches his dad-- “The Nurturer” of infants”-- cooly poison and dispose of an infant-- simply because he weighed less than his twin and was therefore, of lesser use to the society.
In The Giver by Lois Lowry, they kill babies and throw their bodies down garbage chutes. They don’t do this in some grand display of hate, but even worse-- with a casual and cold indifference. This scene comes as a horrific shock to readers as their society seemed so bland and mild up until this point. We see the protagonist, 12 year-old Jonas, live a tragically montonous life. His schooling is old-fashioned and rigid. His nuclear family sits at dinner each night as they take turns sharing their feelings. We watch his father, whose job title is “Nurturerer,” care for a baby with tenderness and what we assume is love. Things seem so humdrum that when I used to teach this novel to middle-schoolers, it was hard to maintain their interest in the first chapters.
Once Jonas meets “The Giver” and receives the memories of all the world, things quickly turn. We learn that in this world, they have no color-- they’ve been seeing everything in black and white this entire time without anyone (characters or readers) realizing it. We learn that members of this society (except “The Giver” and “The Reciever”) have never had a sunburn. Have never experienced starvation. Have never felt the deep despair of losing a loved one. This all may sound pretty good until you realize the flip side. They have also never felt the pleasant warmth of the sun at all. Or physical attraction. Or love. Jonas realizes that the “feelings” he and his family have shared over dinnertime his entire life were never true feelings at all. The members of this society have no genuine emotions because they have no concept of life or death. And then, in the tragically ironic climax, Jonas watches his dad-- “The Nurturer” of infants”-- cooly poison and dispose of an infant-- simply because he weighed less than his twin and was therefore, of lesser use to the society.
I cherish dystopian novels like this one in my times of despair because they’re a wake up call. They take what we thought we knew about pain and demolish our expectations. In our current human reality, the antethesis of joy is not sadness. The antethtesis of joy is indifference and total numbness. We experience pain not because goodness is absent, but because it is present. My migraines are agonizing because I know what life is like without them. And when the pain fades, my joy is all the greater because I know that darkness too. At the risk of sounding horribly cliche, we rejoice in the spring because we toughed out the winter.
Henry David Thoreau wrote,
“I wanted to live deep and suck the marrow out of life.”
This is in Walden and he was talking about his decision to cut himself off from society and live solitarily in the wilderness...totally different context, but I feel this quotation is highly relevant to anyone suffering. He implies that in order to “live deep,” we must do something that sounds totally gross-- suck bone marrow. Sounds weird, but stay with me here.
Last year, I attempted eliminating migraines through adopting a healthy diet as outlined in a heavily-researched book. As instructed, my generous mom would regularly cook bone broth for me to drink because of its natural healing properties....Once again, consuming bone product sounds super gross. When eating, I had always avoided the bones as much as possible. It’s even a little disturbing to think of our teeth tearing meat away from a bone that used to belong to a live animal. The last thing I wanted to do is collect bones, brew them, and drink the result daily. Clearly, I am not the only who felt this way as it was difficult to find butchers who actually kept the bones to sell. Typically, they dispose of them immediately. But if I want my body to benefit from its incredible and all natural benefits, I have to drink the gross "bone juice," and drink if often.
Last year, I attempted eliminating migraines through adopting a healthy diet as outlined in a heavily-researched book. As instructed, my generous mom would regularly cook bone broth for me to drink because of its natural healing properties....Once again, consuming bone product sounds super gross. When eating, I had always avoided the bones as much as possible. It’s even a little disturbing to think of our teeth tearing meat away from a bone that used to belong to a live animal. The last thing I wanted to do is collect bones, brew them, and drink the result daily. Clearly, I am not the only who felt this way as it was difficult to find butchers who actually kept the bones to sell. Typically, they dispose of them immediately. But if I want my body to benefit from its incredible and all natural benefits, I have to drink the gross "bone juice," and drink if often.
Of course, this is just a metaphor-- what does it mean to “suck the marrow out of life?” In a world that only values pleasantness, the idea of sucking out bone marrow out of anything is highly unappealing. Yet, that’s the point-- being a truly alive person means a total absorption of the unpleasant things. In order to be fully human, we must learn to embrace everything life has to offer: beauty, truth, joy, but also pain and suffering.
This doesn’t mean I should quit trying to find the cure for headaches (as relief is also a worthy sensation), but I shouldn’t let it become my main purpose. I should recognize that the pain is but a small price to pay to also experience love and goodness. I choose to feel every shade of every color even if that means I must sometimes hurt badly.
Works Cited
Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio, 1993.
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