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The Interesting Thing About Suffering Posting Date: Jan 18 2009 11:37AM The interesting thing about suffering is that people never want you to do it alone, which is odd. Generally, we are a selfish species built on DNA that promotes both the survival of the fittest and rudeness. We so routinely put our own feelings and preferences ahead of the survival needs of our fellow creatures that the exceptions are literally newsworthy – Man using Bluetooth headset almost calls 911 for maimed grandmother. Film at eleven.
We feel badly for the cow, but we wear leather shoes and eat cheeseburgers. We worry about global warming and habitat loss, but we burn fossil fuels to stay comfortable in winter and buy homes in subdivisions carved out of the forest. We sign our organ donor cards to perhaps save a life, but then cut off a minivan filled with children if it tries to get ahead of us on a highway merge.
We are superficially caring, but fundamentally selfish, self-centred, narcissistic creatures. Usually.
When it comes to physical suffering, however, the kind brought on by illness or injury, we never, ever want our fellow human beings to suffer alone.
If you get whacked in the face with a hockey stick or a rolling pin and have to get stitches, people don’t want to see you shoulder the pain of those sutures alone. Once they learn of your fate, I guarantee the stories of similar mishaps start to fly. “Oh, I know how you feel. One time when I was drilling fence posts with my uncle, the auger hit a rock and jumped up and caught me in the chin. Bled like a freaking Easter ham. Six stitches right here. See that scar?”
“Oh, man. You wrecked your back? Don’t lift granite table tops, man. Reminds me of the time I lifted that fallen oak tree off that box of kittens in a lightning storm. I remembered to lift with me knees, but when I was putting the tree back down, with that cheering crowd I got distracted and forgot and next thing I know, I couldn’t pull my own pants up for a month.”
“Ouch, I remember when I lost a tooth. It was in Mexico and I was swimming in the ocean, body surfing really, when it turned out I was closer to shore than I realized. The waves just carried me right in, face first. I landed on a tiki bar, smashed my face but saved the tequila sunrise of the hottie on the barstool. Broke this tooth right here. I didn’t notice for three days.”
“Food poisoning? Oh, man, food poisoning. You must feel absolutely gross, like I mean totally spent and nauseous and pukey and like your intestines are turning into a tornado of sewer water. That’s nasty. The last time I got food poisoning I was eating mayonnaise sushi on a dive boat in Costa Rica. Got sick for the first time ten metres below sea level. Blew chunks right into my ventilator. That was nasty. The flight home was fun, I’ll tell you. Good thing I brought my own bag. I had both ends going like the fountain at Caesar’s Palace. Hope you’re feeling better.”
Misery, apparently, loves company or perhaps company loves a little misery. Boot camp proved long ago that shared torture brings people together. Nothing unites like a common enemy. Well, it turns out that even if the enemy is a flesh wound, muscle sundering, dental emergency or gastrointestinal infection, people can unite over it, even if the battle is not concurrent.
Once a victim of bad mayo, always a victim of bad mayo. This is the credo we live by. It is, despite all of the selfish and uncaring evidence to the contrary, the defining motto of humanity. We are, it turns out, all in this together.
My wound is your wound. Your parasite is my parasite.
I don’t mean that last one literally. If you’ve got some sort of parasite, you’re actually on your own. I want nothing to do with you. Seriously. Don’t even come around here with your parasite stories. I do not want to hear them. |
