Introduction

I’m starting this blog because I want to explore…pain.

I’ve had problems with physical pain almost all of my adult life. Almost all of it is from injuries of various extents that have never really completely healed, which seems to be the story of my life.

Perhaps I am just unlucky, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it. I hope to explore some of the ideas here, being as honest about myself as I can be. I hope it will be a form of therapy.

Having just taken 3 Aleve, 300 mg of Gabapentin, and drinking a glass of wine, my neck still hurts. My hands burn. My bottom hurts where my tailbone once was. I don’t think my problems are minor, but I don’t think they’re all independent, either.

I’ve chosen “The Problem of Pain” as the title for this blog, but only partly in homage to C.S. Lewis. I am not a Christian and do not ascribe to many of Lewis’s beliefs. In many ways I wish I did believe — it seems to make life, and philosophizing, easier. But I don’t see any evidence of a “god” or “gods” and so I can’t believe in it all. But I’m not opposed to the idea, either.

But Lewis’s book is probably one every sufferer of pain eventually comes to. And in any case, who can doubt that pain is indeed a problem?

I do not wish to imply here that my pain is unique, or worse than that of others. It is not. We all suffer, and some terribly. But I do know that it has, too often, dominated my life, and I’m right now in one of its deeper troughs. I know what doesn’t work. Perhaps writing here will do some good.

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
— Kahlil Gibran