The only problem with pain as such - trauma, grieving - is that when you're caught in the middle of it it appears so overwhelmingly inescapable.
Not so bad when you can skirt round the edges of it, dip your toes in it so to speak ... not so painful, anyway ... though that might tend to avoidance (or good management?)
Ralph
>But there is a general idea in Western societies that pain is _bad_
>and to be avoided at all costs. Now I'm not one of those who thinks
>that suffering is good for the soul - that's complete crap - but to
>me it seems that the total avoidance of pain amounts to a total
>avoidance of life. And so as a society we are less and less able to
>deal with it, and I think that's the major reason for the "epidemic"
>of mental illness which is happening now. It was telling for me that
>once when a bunch of psychiatrists showed some patients some romantic
>poetry (Wordsworth, Coleridge et al) they all began to feel better.
>Theory No. 331 from Alison.
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