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Josh Stanton

Mr. Delmont

Senior AP English

12 January 2018

The Ideology of Pain in Culture

“I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all” is a lyric in a well known song from the band

Three Days Grace. Pain is an enigma that has been around for as long as life has, and yet we as

people still know so little about. Many philosophers, professors, and even sexual deviants have

attempted over the centuries to define and explain the purpose of pain. While I am no

philosopher, doctor, or professional in any sense, I too have an opinion about pain. I have

interviewed people and done research on the beliefs of others regarding this feeling and I have

come up with my own thesis. Pain is an extremely complex instinct and in order to relieve pain

we must first understand it.

In evolutionary terms, pain is one of the most primal survival instincts programmed into

animals. A nociceptor is a nerve that sends a warning signal to the brain that something may

cause harm to the body. For example, when you hold your hand over an open flame, your body

feels pain to tell you that this could burn and melt your skin. However, I believe there is more to

pain than a simple warning signal because we also feel pain when a family member dies, or when

a significant other leaves us. So what else is pain?

There were two dominant philosophical views in history on pain itself. One ideology was

presented by John Bentham stating that pain and pleasure were two separate and opposite things

and that ideally, one would want to maximize the pleasure in their life while minimizing the pain
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they experience. The other philosophy was that pain and pleasure are more complex than that

and that they were actually one and the same. Marquis de Sade, the founder of this idea, believed

that if people embraced pain, they could actually find pleasure in it. For example, if a drug is

illegal in the United States, buying and using said drug within the country will actually bring

more pleasure because you are not supposed to be doing it. When researching this topic, I found

that people had defined pain from an outside view as if they were uninvolved, but everyone feels

pain and I believe that everyone feels pain differently. Therefore, I decided that the only course

of action left for me to take was to test my theory and conduct interviews.

First, I interviewed my mother. Dolly Alexander was born in Mumbai, India and moved

to the United States when she was eight years old. She started working when she was sixteen,

and went to college in the same year. She got divorced in 2008 and described the endeavor as a

“high conflict separation.” I asked Dolly several questions regarding pain and suffering, and got

reflective responses free of any resentment in return. First, I asked what pain was to her, and she

answered that “it’s a feeling that is unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unwelcome.” Secondly, I

asked Ms. Alexander what she believed the solution to pain is or if there was one at all. Her

response was that she does not believe there is a solution to pain, and you have to let it hurt and

let time heal. If it is a physical pain, you can use medicine or bandages, or if it is an emotional

pain, you can go through therapy or get medication, but ultimately, it takes time. Lastly, I asked

Ms. Alexander if she believed pain was necessary in life and if so for what purpose. Her final

response was that she fully believes in the fact that pain is necessary in our lives so that we can

grow as people, and gain wisdom, compassion, and character in general, and also so that we can

enjoy life at all. This last point struck home for me because I had not explored the idea that
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pleasure could not exist without pain. Contrary to both de Sade and Bentham, this idea is that we

could not praise something as pleasurable if we had no pain to compare it to.

In order to test whether people feel pain differently, the next interview had to be someone

who I knew thought of everything differently than Ms. Alexander. While this source chose to

remain anonymous, they allowed me to use their answers for this project. I asked the source the

same questions I asked Ms. Alexander so that my conclusion could still be deemed valid by

changing only one variable. When asked what pain was, Mr. Smith (as he will henceforth be

labeled) replied with the simple answer “life.” I asked Mr. Smith to elaborate on this and he

explained to me the idea that everything someone does in life, every decision they make, every

experience they have, all will lead to pain, be it their own or someone else's. I found his answer

eerie and dark compared to the answers I had received from Ms. Alexander. When I asked Mr.

Smith’s solution to pain, he told me that one cannot truly escape pain, but instead choose to

toughen up, and learn to numb it. I inquired as to how someone could numb their pain, and was

met with a list of illegal drugs and several dangerously potent liquors. There lies the difference

between the two interviewees: the way pain is looked at and dealt with. Now that I had a grasp

on the ideas of people, I decided to begin to look through works of literature to see if pain has

changed over the decades.

In numerous works of literary merit, pain is in some way a major theme or plot, and

oftentimes this is because an author is aware that the audience can relate to this topic. Pain is

relevant in Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, and many

others. These are all books that students are expected to read in school because of their themes

and writing. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo is the novel with the most readily available
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evidence for both emotional and physical pain. When referring to physical pain, the story follows

a war veteran who has lost his limbs, his mouth, his nose, his ears, and his eyes, and feels

nothing except endless physical pain. However, he also explores the suffering of heartbreak in

this work. “He thought why everybody can find some little spark of self respect inside himself.

Even a murderer or a thief or a dog or an ant has something that keeps its head up and going. But

I haven’t. That night in bed was the first time he ever cried over a girl. He just lay there and

bawled like a kid.” (Trumbo, Chapter 4). This allows us to see a wide range of the different types

of suffering we can experience throughout life. We will all experience different levels of

physical and emotional pain, and some will describe it as a rough patch, and some will call it an

existential suffering, but overall, we all experience pain at some point.

Finally, in order to make my conclusion I had one more source I had to explore. I had

already analyzed the pain of the people I do not know through the books and philosophies, and I

had examined the pain of the people who I have the pleasure of knowing. All that was left to do

was to interpret my own pain. Prior to doing so, I must share my story and the pains I have

endured, however miniscule, with you so that you can understand where I gather my thesis from.

I would like to preface this by saying that I know there are hundreds of thousands of people who

have things much worse than I do and I feel very blessed to be where I am today, and am in no

way looking for pity or empathy of any kind. Starting in my early childhood, I was a victim of

physical pain by fairly normal means. My father, being the disciplinarian of my household, chose

to correct my unwanted or negative behaviors through physical punishments. I was spanked very

often, occasionally thrown or held against a wall, but nothing to cause any serious bodily harm,

just enough to create fear, and consequently, respect. This was my first taste of pain I have in my
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memory, and from the start I knew it was not a wanted feeling at all. Then, as I grew older, life

was, for the most part, pain free besides the occasional scolding, I had nothing painful in my life.

The only parts I remember being unpleasant was the constant fighting between my parents, and

my sister and I being forced to listen to the yells and screams from the other room. Being that I

was young and impressionable, I assumed this was normal for every family, and that was when

my parents decided to get divorced. I was eight years old and it was a bit of a shock for me to

hear this life-changing news. Besides the pain I felt of my parents no longer loving one another, I

also had my father tell me that my mother was lying to me about many things, and my mother

deny these accusations and question the sanity of my father. This builds up a strong distrust of

love and of one’s family, leaving me in a world of emotional pain. Finally, after a long custody

battle, my mother got custody over my sister and I, and a few months later, my father moved to

the other side of the country. As if that weren’t bad enough, that Christmas, while visiting him,

our father attempted to kidnap us, and was unsuccessful, and detained until we left the state.

Another form of pain I felt was the hatred of oneself. I resented myself for the way I looked,

talked, and acted. This type of self-hatred is negative, and led to more emotional breakdowns

than I care to admit. I saw several counselors during this time in my life, yet they all wanted to

attribute my issues to the fact that my parent’s divorce was messy. Finally, due to all of the

emotional pain and stress of my childhood, high school came, and I got into several relationships

that I shouldn’t have and overly committed myself to a couple of girls who, to be frank, were not

worth my time. This may have been one of the worst pains because it killed me, and left me

broken far worse than the others. Being that I came from an emotional wreck of a family, I didn’t

know how to handle love, and I either gave none, or far too much of myself to girls who I knew
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would use and hurt me. I have regrettably had several flings over the years, but there were three

main girls who truly crushed me. Now, I ask you to understand that after being hurt from my

family, and myself, I gave all of my love to the girl I liked at that time. The first of these

relationships was very on and off and was planned to last no more than eight months when she

turned eighteen. This still hurt me immensely when she ended it because I had grown attached to

her. Then, a year later, I fell for another girl, and I took my time trying to win her over, and fell

in love with her. Lucky for me, she was newly single and I waited before going for it. She said

the feelings were mutual, and then the next day she was back with her ex-boyfriend. This was

strike two. I decided to try one more time when I met a beautiful girl who didn’t go to the same

school as me and who I saw every week. We talked all the time and the feelings were mutual,

and we both liked each other a lot according to what was said. Unfortunately for me, I then

figured out after 5 months of talking that she was in a relationship and had been for the past 5

years. Finally, I realized that I know nothing about love, and rather than hurting myself over and

over again, I will wait until I can heal from my wounds and understand love more before I try

again. In summary, I have experienced pain from my family situation, pain from my own self

loathing, and pain from my romantic relationships. Now, knowing this about my background, I

can draw my conclusion about pain, suffering, and how to fix them.

Based on what I have learned from the experiences of others, from the philosophies and

writings of men past, and from my own life, I have created a thesis regarding pain. As I said at

the beginning of this essay, pain is an extremely complex thing to attempt to analyze and dissect.

I have found several things to be true about pain, and one of these is that pain is the best teacher.

This is why pain is often used to discipline children, because pain is an extremely effective and
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long lasting conditioning tool. I believe that life uses pain to attempt to teach people lessons, and

if we choose to look at the causes and roots of our pain, we can see what life is trying to tell us. I

also agree with the idea that pain is good, because without pain, pleasure could not truly exist. If

nothing in life is painful, then nothing in life seems so extraordinary. Life would take on a bleak,

boring quality without suffering and hurt. I also believe pain is a way of weeding out the weak.

Before you begin to claim I am an insensitive, I do not mean pain is a way of killing anyone off,

I simply mean that those who cannot deal with their pain will learn how to cope with their

problems with others whereas history shows they used to hide their pain until it killed them.

Finally, I see pain as a part of everything we are. If we stripped ourselves down to our core, all of

the suffering we have been through is what has shaped and molded us into who we are today. I

wouldn’t be here today if I didn’t have the childhood I had and if I didn’t suffer through the

heartbreaks I did. I am certain that the same can be said for everyone who has ever existed

because pain builds character, and how an individual chooses to respond to the hurt in their lives

is what makes them into who they are.

Using this idea of pain, we see that there is no need for a cure for pain, and that is

fortunate because no healthy or permanent medicine exists. Instead we find that the only solution

we must search for is how to deal with pain in a healthy way and how to let it shape us in the

right direction. The best way I can say to do this is to look at your decisions that may have

caused you pain, and look at them from the perspective of someone who cares about you more

than anyone else involved in the situation. Sometimes, we have to think about ourselves before

we think about others, not to be selfish but because you cannot make others happy if you aren’t

happy first. So look at the pain you have been dealt, and see how you can avoid being hurt like
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that again in the future. The hardest part of this treatment is not looking at things in a pessimistic

way even when you feel like you want to and like it is the easiest way to keep yourself from

being hurt again. Keep a positive mentality, and remind yourself that this might suck, but you’re

gonna get through it, and you’re gonna be a better person coming out of it.

Suffering is not the most desirable feeling in the world, and for most, it actually falls

pretty low on that scale. However, it is necessary for us to grow as people and to learn from our

mistakes. People throughout history have experienced pain in millions of different ways, and

they have all come through. The key is to allow pain to change you for the better, and not make

you into a bitter person who holds onto their resentment for everyone who has ever wronged

them.