I am not in any way an agony aunt, nor do I consider that I am particularly placed to give anyone advice, especially on medical or emotional matters. But, I do have one tip that I think might benefit everyone:
If you can possibly help it, try not to hurl yourself downstairs head first.
Which is something I inadvertantly did last night. It was purely an accident and not, I might add, a Diana-esque cry for help (if you remember she once tried to kill herself by falling down some stairs. She also reputedly tried self-annihalation by throwing herself into a bookcase. Perhaps she should have taken the opportunity of proximity to read some of the books).
I don't balance well on my useless feet and sometimes just spontaneously fall over. This is usually of little consequence, and often quite comical, as spontaneous falling over is. But when it happens at the top of the stairs it can lead you to both injury and pointless philosophical thinking. The question that spun through my mind, as I executed a technically rather difficult flailing arm dive with half-twist was, "Why didn't this happen at the bottom of the stairs, or as I was walking next to a soft mattress?": a question that is on the same plane as "Why does the toast always fall marmalade side down?"
Because I landed ribs first on the edge of a step, I spent the whole of today in the kind of pain that you cannot escape. One of those pains that hurts only when you breathe. For some other, unknown reason, I also developed a cough. Considering the amount I smoke and the fact that it is the middle of Winter, maybe I already had a bit of a cough before, but as of this morning it became very noticeable.
I am used to pain. Chronic pain in my feet and ankles is the major symptom of my disability. Like most people with some kind of chronic pain, I take a pill and try and do as much as I can with it. Some days are worse than others and, compared to some ideal non-pain environment it's a drag. But compared to real life, it's not usually a big deal.
However, today with usual pain and my bashed up ribs I felt like Kurt Cobain.
It got me thinking about pain itself. So I googled the question "What is pain?" to learn more. But it turns out that pain is a very underdefined thing. Asking "What is pain?" will elicit as many vague answers as asking "What is love?". Although to my knowledge the fluffy haired 80s vegan pop maestro Howard Jones never recorded a song called What is Pain?.
Turns out that something so everyday, that is THE overwhelmingly major cause of suffering in the world is, even in the century of science, relatively little known about. The best pain relief we have is still opium, and that's been around for ever. You'd think that someone might have set out to really crack the problem and made some real progress on it. But it seems that they haven't. We still rely on eating extract of flowers.
Which begs another question. Who discovered that munching on poppies was so efficacious? I just imagine someone aeons ago saying. "Ouch, I sprained my wrist skinning a buffalo, I think I will eat some poppies. Wow, it's a miracle, my wrist doesn't hurt anymore!"
A happy accident, methinks. Less a case of intelligent design than accidental gastronomy. And one which, if it hadn't happened, might have had quite an impact on the fate of Kurt Cobain.
If you can possibly help it, try not to hurl yourself downstairs head first.
Which is something I inadvertantly did last night. It was purely an accident and not, I might add, a Diana-esque cry for help (if you remember she once tried to kill herself by falling down some stairs. She also reputedly tried self-annihalation by throwing herself into a bookcase. Perhaps she should have taken the opportunity of proximity to read some of the books).
I don't balance well on my useless feet and sometimes just spontaneously fall over. This is usually of little consequence, and often quite comical, as spontaneous falling over is. But when it happens at the top of the stairs it can lead you to both injury and pointless philosophical thinking. The question that spun through my mind, as I executed a technically rather difficult flailing arm dive with half-twist was, "Why didn't this happen at the bottom of the stairs, or as I was walking next to a soft mattress?": a question that is on the same plane as "Why does the toast always fall marmalade side down?"
Because I landed ribs first on the edge of a step, I spent the whole of today in the kind of pain that you cannot escape. One of those pains that hurts only when you breathe. For some other, unknown reason, I also developed a cough. Considering the amount I smoke and the fact that it is the middle of Winter, maybe I already had a bit of a cough before, but as of this morning it became very noticeable.
I am used to pain. Chronic pain in my feet and ankles is the major symptom of my disability. Like most people with some kind of chronic pain, I take a pill and try and do as much as I can with it. Some days are worse than others and, compared to some ideal non-pain environment it's a drag. But compared to real life, it's not usually a big deal.
However, today with usual pain and my bashed up ribs I felt like Kurt Cobain.
It got me thinking about pain itself. So I googled the question "What is pain?" to learn more. But it turns out that pain is a very underdefined thing. Asking "What is pain?" will elicit as many vague answers as asking "What is love?". Although to my knowledge the fluffy haired 80s vegan pop maestro Howard Jones never recorded a song called What is Pain?.
Turns out that something so everyday, that is THE overwhelmingly major cause of suffering in the world is, even in the century of science, relatively little known about. The best pain relief we have is still opium, and that's been around for ever. You'd think that someone might have set out to really crack the problem and made some real progress on it. But it seems that they haven't. We still rely on eating extract of flowers.
Which begs another question. Who discovered that munching on poppies was so efficacious? I just imagine someone aeons ago saying. "Ouch, I sprained my wrist skinning a buffalo, I think I will eat some poppies. Wow, it's a miracle, my wrist doesn't hurt anymore!"
A happy accident, methinks. Less a case of intelligent design than accidental gastronomy. And one which, if it hadn't happened, might have had quite an impact on the fate of Kurt Cobain.
No comments:
Post a Comment