Friday, July 08, 2005

Are you bragging or complaining?

That is what my dad used to ask me.
It is a subtle form of self flattery to say "It can't get worse!", "Now I've seen everything !" etc. Even if things are definitely bad for you , you are presuming that your suffering is unusual.
Nah. Not that I wouldn't feel sympathy for you but it is not special.

Even without the boon of a sympathetic nature, knowing how badly some situation affects you gives you the motivation to find a solution, but learning how badly it affects others teaches you where to look for that solution.

3 comments:

BwcaBrownie said...

Hello pithingcontest - I am wearing my pith helmet today and followed you home from your comment at my friend Diogenes blog.
Reading down your posts and agreeing and thinking you should be running the world with me and Diog, and I arrive at this post about (whatever it was) which reminds me how my ex-podiatrist lost a client. I was there for the unth time and feeling overwhelmed by pain (gout) I whined.
Podiatrist snapped back : "at least you don't have bowel cancer!"
I am a person who understands maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs theory, and despite that I wonder how anybody with relentless pain could feel better by acknowledging that at least they are not 'on fire', drowning, or tied to a train track.

GreenSmile said...

Brownie:
Well, at least I did say I would be sympathetic...
Hmmm. I guess I didn't put this into quite the right words...[like I say, comments are very helpful].

The point I set out to make was the notion that personal perception of whats wrong has to be raised up a level by sharing and hearing what others think is wrong before anyone starts planning how to set things right. I went too far away from the message by delving into the relativity of pain. That it is relative is NO HELP to anyone who is dealing with pain. Pain has a way of narrowing consciousness considerably and that's a biological necessity without which most of us wouldn't see our tenth birthday. I admit I still hang on to the notion that with discipline and an appropriate dose of philosopy, you can confine pain in its biological role and salvage some of your consciousness for other aspects of your life. I have a habbit of leaving my codeine prescrptions in the drawer yet for all I know, there might be some pain that would make me wish for death.

Thats why I am,
the Executioner

BwcaBrownie said...

now I've got it - 'knowing how badly some situation affects you gives you the motivation to find a solution, '

Nope. I am not assuming that there should be a solution.
It's a bitch and I live with it.

not whining. not bragging.
peace n love, b