As much as we hate pain, we often tend to forget how much we depend on it for our survival. Our inbuilt reflex to avoid pain goes a long way in keeping us safe and healthy, though we may not be too happy about the way it achieves that.
Why is pain so painful? Couldn't evolution/nature have found a less painful way to keep us from jumping off cliffs, touching red hot objects and various other crazy stuff we would do to ourselves in the absence of pain? As welcome as that would be, we have to accept the fact that there is really not a lot we can do to reprogram ourselves now.
So much for physical pain. Emotional pain is somehow a lot more fascinating. Of course, humans evolved to live in groups for our survival, hence anything that triggers this loss of societal bonds also triggers pain. It is quite fascinating that this one impulse (common to many species in wildlife) to live in groups and to be accepted in a group puts us in danger of emotional pain from so many varied circumstances. Someone mourning the loss of a friend. Someone publicly shamed for being insolvent. A child crying when teased in front of his or her peer group. A father angered because his daughter has done something to embarrass him in front of his peer group.
In many ways, when is comes to emotional pain, many of us don't really grow up. We may learn to tolerate physical pain as we grow older but when is comes to emotional pain, it takes a high level of maturity to withstand it. May sound insensitive, but how different is a 5 year old crying because she has lost her pencil to a 50 year old crying because she has lost her son? They are both feeling pain over something they lost. When an adult looks back and remembers the time she cried for a lost pencil, it seems comical. Could it be possible that if we achieve a higher level of maturity/evolution/spiritual awareness, crying over any kind of loss would seem comical? Maybe, maybe not.
Evolution gave us many tools to survive. And we humans manage to screw up most of them. Sometimes a little, sometimes to ridiculous levels. The instinct to band together as groups solidified into religion and castes with such tragic results. The maternal instinct gone nuts makes women fall for jerks. Our liking for sweet tasting and fatty foods, which once ensured we ate enough energy giving foods to help us survive, has turned into a liability in today's world. And our instinct to avoid pain has warped into a dangerous hankering for painkillers and drugs posing as medication. Not to mention, straightforward escapes into alcohol, drugs and nervous breakdowns.
There are different alleys through which we can run to avoid pain. One of them leads to beauty.
Pain creates beauty and beauty can be painful.
Pain can translate into beautiful works of art. But what makes this art, beautiful? Shouldn't something created out of pain turn into something ugly, thereby fulfilling evolution's goal of repelling us from all things painful?
A sad song might make us cry, but why does it haunt us in a most appealing way? A sunset can be painfully beautiful. The smell of a baby's head can cause a sharp pang in your heart. The mournful sound of the sea can be so soothing. And a gentlest touch can make you quake.
Can anything truly beautiful be pain-free? And vice-versa?
Wonder what misfiring in our biology or psychology made us so twisted up. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful twist up.
And I like to imagine Mona Lisa knows. That is why she is so haunted, so beautiful, so sad, yet smiling.
