This is not a rant.
My first reaction was, as you would expect, to think about how bad this week was going to be, how much work I was going to do and how uncertain the results would be.
This is not a chin up motivational speech proposing optimism in the face of a dreary future.
The second reaction I had to my realization surprised me. My brain relaxed and in as many words I thought, "This is going to hurt."
Nothing mind blowing yet, but the more I thought about it, the more useful I realized an attitude of resignation to pain, whatever that pain may be, could be.
First, it doesn't call for a denial of what is necessary. A positive attitude can keep you saying, "I think I can I think I can" right up past the moment you fail your midterm or lose your race or whatever.
Second, an attitude of resignation doesn't require that one braces or over anticipates or overestimates a challenge. When we psych ourselves out or get pumped up we often pump up to the challenge and make it big enough to be worthy of our state. Then when the challenge hits we either shut down if it's bigger than expected or breeze through with all the energy we saved for it.
Imagine you're on a long distance run. It starts to burn and you've spent the last thirty minutes mentally preparing yourself to beat the pain. But the pain is worse than you remember and it's augmented by the stress you have about it so you shut down and miss the time you were shooting for.
If you got on your shoes and thought, "Whelp, this is going to suck," and went for your run, you aren't wasting energy stressing over the pain. You're just going with what you can. Then when the pain hits it doesn't surprise you and it's not blown out of proportion. At best you don't think at all, at worst you think, "Here goes nothing" and dig in with the mental energy you haven't expended denying or beating the challenge in your mind.
If any of you have seen Casino Royale, there's one scene that illustrates the advantages of resignation to suffering quite well. LeChiffre walks in and sets the rope on Bond's shoulder. Bond knows his future is bleak but I could easily imagine a few thoughts going through his mind. He's not thinking about how he can't let LeChiffre get the password. That's his goal and if he realizes that's all he has to give up when he's in a ton of pain, odds are good he caves. But if he just thinks, "Holy S*** this is going suck" then he can start laughing and deal with what comes as best as he can.
Resignation towards suffering looks like an ironic attitude: we're supposed to fight through the pain, not accept it. But if we look at incoming pain and think, "Here we go," were meeting suffering on its own terms. Irony takes energy away from pain and gives it back to us. Fighting through pain acknowledges its power and takes away our mental strength.
And in the scene I mentioned before, irony gives Bond the upper hand. LeChiffre is supposed to be in charge; he's supposed to be beating bond to death, but with the right attitude Bond can just keep saying "Ouch" and laugh, while LeChiffre goes mad.
Granted all this is coming from someone who's idea of pain is a long distance run or several hours of homework, not from someone dealing with a true loss. It's also coming from someone who is writing a blog post instead of dealing with the pressing issues causing the mental stress prompting the post. I won't delve into dealing with real suffering beyond the physical, but in my own life at least, an ironic attitude towards pain is the most reflective of reality.
A good portion of our lives is spent in pain, and in the end we will never understand why we suffer or how best to suffer, and the worse the suffering the less we understand it. When pain is framed that way, there's no rational option but to resign ourselves to it.
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