Lets quickly dispense with the first as we all know it well enough. You fall, skin your knee, get a bump on the head, or if you’ve seen combat or been in such an environment where you’ve been stabbed or shot as well. It’s a pain and type of pain every single one of us is familiar with. Sometimes it comes so quickly like a shot, a car accident, or with an adrenaline rush with a stab that at first we don’t feel or even realize something is wrong or amiss, but after, we feel every second, with every beat of our heart.
Sometimes, if we’re very lucky, we heal perhaps completely and with no more to show for it than an interesting scar. For some, the pain never completely heals; you just learn to block a bit more of it day by day. There are hundreds of pain drugs and derivatives, each with their own risks. Some work, marginally, but create their own complications. I’ll go no further here as I have no further opinion other than it seems more lucrative to treat than cure, but that’s a debate I have nothing to contribute to.
Then there is the other class of pain. Emotional pain, or sometimes called pain of the heart. Ironically, we may feel the pain in our chests, but the origin of it lies in our brain. We’ve all had broken hearts, had our love spurned, or have been cast aside for another. We’ve lost people or pets that we loved dearly and there is nothing that can fill that void.
There is no treatment, no cure, no remedy for many of us. Just like physical wounds, in time most will heal but the body can stitch together skin faster than it can a broken heart. We can love again, we can learn to trust again, but for many of us the wounds are far deeper. Love can be a balm, but only a balm. Some find their solution in faith, but that can only help a superstitious mind. Some just hope. I find hope an empty glass; it looks promising and you invest yourself in it, but when you finally bring it to your lips, its bittersweet.
I can laugh, I can cry, but I don’t understand happiness. I don’t understand joy. I know what the words mean, but they are only words with no substance to me. I can feel love and have felt love many times, but love is not happiness, it’s not joy, and love may beat in my heart for a few moments and then the longing that follows, but none of these things last. I can see beauty and appreciate beauty, but I feel nothing in possessing of it and most times prefer not to. Possession leads to the witness of decay.
I’m a peaceful person, I abhor violence, and I can empathize. I detest being rude and will often chastise myself for hours if I believe I have been. It pains me to believe I may cause pain.
I didn’t want this to be about me, but for others that may understand my point of view. Some of us are just broken toys, but even broken toys can bring happiness even if they themselves can never experience it.