Postmortem of Pain

I’m gonna begin this with a very trite phrase – smile and the world smiles with you…and you know the rest. Well, it’s bullshit. The truth is that the power of pain is much deeper and profound than the sharing of laughter. So you share a couple of beers and lewd jokes with the guys from work – you can do that with anyone. But with the people you forge the bond of pain, it’s longer lasting than any other bond, other than maybe the one of blood.

I recently learnt about a special characteristic of manic-depressive people. They are actually very charismatic, intense personalities – who draw people to themselves through their pain. I thought back to most of my relationships – albeit unsuccessful – most were based on this bond. Not that I am manic-depressive (I’m not, believe me…won’t u? batting eyelashes suggestively) but somehow my entire sex appeal was centered on my ability to express the pain that I have seen (I pride myself on having seen a few more bitter facets of life than most of my peers, and coming out unscathed). And men thought themselves to be giant grislies who could protect me from the big bad world.

And it’s not just men, true to Goddess tradition! You take friends – any friends – the friends who have known your bitter past and failed endeavors and known the pain you have encountered – will always be closer than the ones with whom you share the beers. Think of the people who were around when you flunked math, the people who took you home after you puked all over and passed out from an alcohol overdose, the guys who took you to hospital and stayed up nights when you had a liver infection and were away from family and got nauseous at the mention of hospitals, the ones who gave you a shoulder to cry on when your first crush started going out with the basketball team captain (assuming YOU were NOT the basketball team captain), when you didn’t crack that interview on which you thought your life depended, when your lover cheated on you, when your dad had surgery, when your business didn’t take off and you lost all your capital, the list is endless. The people who heard you cry in the shower, when you were turning up the faucet so that the sound of the water would drown out your moans of pain. The people who saw you curled up in the fetal position, trying to block out the rest of the world, because you didn’t have the strength to fight with it anymore.

Pain binds. And real strong. It binds unknown families together when they strive for justice when movie theaters catch fire and innocent lives are taken at Page 3 parties. It binds institutions together when they raise their voices against unfair reservations. It binds cities together when it’s flooding and family members are unreachable, nowhere to be found. When you wade through neck-deep water, it makes you hold hands and cross roads. It binds nations together when tsunamis happen, and little known people become famous overnight for the hand of help and faith that they extend.

Yes, there is a lot of fear, panic, resentment, anger, sadness, loss, hatred – but at the base of it is pain. Could be yours. Could be someone else's that you can feel. Just pure, inescapable pain.