I woke this morning with these lines running through my head.
(That often happens to me with poetry, I awake with a poem or a set of song lyrics already running through my head – it is a lifelong habit going back to when I was a kid. Don’t ask me why this happens, maybe it is a result of part of my dreaming or sleep cycle. To me it’s just the way it works. And has always worked.)
To me this poem is a sort of psychological or sub-conscious encapsulation in verse of how I feel about pain in general, and what purpose is served by pain in particular.
I know that a lot of people, especially modern people, think pain and suffering is something to be avoided at all costs, a thing to be eliminated, ignored, or at the very least escaped by lifelong periods of “treatments” or self-medications of one form or another. Something they would rather not endure. And truth be told, sometimes at least, even I am sympathetic to that point of view. In certain cases anyway.
But to me, at least in general and in most circumstances, pain (of most any kind) is not an enemy, it is not something to be dulled or medicated, or cured (except in specific situations – such as injury recovery) but rather you should use it as a tool and a weapon to Cure and control the lesser and weaker parts of yourself.
Pain is not something you fear or flee, but rather embrace and use to reforge yourself into a much harder, tougher, and stronger man. Pain cures you of your own smallness and frailties. It is both a method and a means to become a much bigger, stronger, tougher, capable, and a much greater man. (Or woman, or child.)
I am sympathetic, even empathetic to the pain of others in most cases (unless it is needlessly self-inflicted pain used as an puny excuse to lazily escape their better natures), and many have been the times in my life I wish I could have cured others of whatever they suffered. But not always. Sometimes I wish they had simply employed their pain for their own advantage.
As for me, and seemingly contrary to modern man in general, I think it is mostly (not always, but mostly) a grave mistake to view pain as an enemy to overcome, rather than a valuable Friend and Ally to beneficially exploit.
Pain, well used, is treasured gain.
Hence, the ultimate folly of, The Easy Pain.
Note: this poem is unfished as of yet. This is just a first draft and it is in part at least fragmented. I wrote down as much as I could compose and remember before having to go downstairs and tend my animals and start breakfast for the family. I’ll correct, edit, and finish it later.
THE EASY PAIN
The easy pain is nothing, the harder pain is true
Numb your pain with medicines, it dulls the things you do
Exploit you pain with action, suffer for your aim
Give your anguish meaning; give your pain a name
Modern men think hardship something to escape
A prison cell of torment, an inconvenience they do hate
So remedies attempt them, with surgeries and drugs
To treat their pain relentless, or kill it like a thug
Yet still pain hammers on them, but tempers not their soul
The longer they do flee it the weaker that they grow
Agony is iron-dust if suffered not in Truth
Corrupt the ore is broken, not forged to better use – yet,
When men make their anguish the raw drive of their life
And consume it like ambrosia it feeds them in their strife
When they shape and craft their pain into their sword and tool
They shape themselves in better ways, Grow Wise, and not a fool
Anger righteous is no vice, Justice is a christ
And pain is not a fearsome foe, but a Holy Geist
Man you flee your sacred pain, and to what avail?
Meant to grow you into gods, you’ve made it into hell
One day you should thank the God who made you suffer such
If only you might use your pain to make yourself as much…
End of fragment…
Wyrdwend 