The First Rule (of Fight Club)

Vol. 1 Issue 34

Yeah so I missed a week, big deal. So what if statistics somewhere say that the keys to a successful blog are the consistency and predictability of the postings. I know nobody likes to visit sites that are not consistently updated because I am one of these people, but still, I scoff at these statistics. I believe that my blog is so great that dozens of people will continue reading it every month based simply on its content alone! Yeah, that’s right, I said it- dozens! Haha.

Okay, I take it take back. Please don’t leave me. Consistency is all I’ve got and I know it. I do have a decent excuse for missing last week though other than pure laziness or writer’s block- it’s pain. And no, I don’t mean any kind of lofty, abstract pain like the pain of existence, the pain of not-succeeding, the pain of being broke, or the OMG pain of artistic angst, but regular physical pain. Still though, aren’t all these pains still only communicated the same way, through behavior and language?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the truth of pain. In Philosophical Investigations I Wittgenstein says, “When I say ‘I am in pain’ I am at any rate justified before myself. - What does this mean?” I think it means that the way that we measure pain, that is just by saying how we feel about it, how much it hurts and crying, is all load of BS. Sure we’re justified to ourselves, but everyone else has to imagine what we feel. We have to display the appropriate behavior to express this feeling that is called pain, particularly when we want relief from the pain in any kind of decent pharmaceutical form. There is no proof of pain as there would be if we were say bleeding, or had a fever. You cannot fake bleeding, ketchup packet and internal bleeding arguments aside please.

Wittgenstein talks about this pain behavior: “I can only believe that someone else is pain, but I know if I am.” So does the notion of pain mean me the same thing to all people? It seems like the notion is too rooted in a linguistic expression. Huh? What am I talking about?

Well, I’ve learned that the only way to convey pain is through pain behavior and this does not work well. As I read through Wittgenstein I have concluded that humans, and humans alone, are able to put forth false pain behavior, as in, humans can act like they are in pain when they are not, thus displaying false pain behavior. This has screwed things up. People have faked pain too many times and now the pain behavior itself is seen as an untruth standing for not-being-in-pain.

It is pretty much universally accepted that animals feel pain right? Does anyone really dispute this? Yet we have no way to categorically know that a dog is in pain but can only tell by its behavior i.e., whining, droopy face, etc. Rover however cannot fake that he is in pain. Rover’s pain behavior is equivalent to his pain.

I go on about this because I’ve learned that purveying your sense of physical pain without any kind of physical proof is an art at which I suck. Pain is supposed to be the body’s reaction to something out-of-order, something amiss, something wrong. At least that’s what I remember from high school health class. So what if nothing is wrong yet we still feel pain? What if it is all psychosomatic? Does that make the pain less real?

Sadly, yes. It does. Whether it’s our innate nature to shrug off anything that lacks empirical evidence, or because too many humans have abused pain behaviors to get drugs, nobody, and by nobody I mean NYC doctors, seems to believe cries of pain without proof.

Examples:

Working Scenario 1. W/Reason For Pain-

Patient: My leg hurts.

Doctor: Why?

P: It’s broken.

D: Here is a cast and some painkillers.

Non-Working Scenario 2. W/O Reason For Pain (dramatization based on actual events)-

P: My leg hurts.

D: Why?

P: I don’t know but I’ve had every possible test imaginable and been through every kind of treatment and it still hurts, a lot. I can’t eat or sleep. I’ve even had to quit my job. Can you give me something for the pain?

D: (In a whisper) Get the hell out of my office you bastard, before I call security.

So how can I get my point across without a bone sticking out of my leg as proof? I know I need to become a better actor and a better liar. At first I thought I could take some acting lessons, but since I’m broke and can’t get out bed I’ve had to come up with a different idea.

Wittgenstein asks, “Could someone understand the word “pain” who had never felt pain?” I would answer this with a ‘no’ and proceed as such. I’d go down to my local hardware store and buy a hammer, or if that particular store stocked them, a baseball bat. When the doctor asked where, and how bad my pain was, I wouldn’t have to rely on pain behaviors like my sad face or crappy negative adjectives. Thanks to my local hardware store, I’d be able to demonstrate to the doctor, on their own bodies, exactly where the pain is and what exactly it feels like.

So now to answer the most important question of all, the one that I know we’ve all been thinking since the my opening sentence: Since this problem has compounded itself to the point where I am pretty much confined to my bed like an invalid, what have I learned?

Two things- One: all that stuff I just talked about leading to the conclusion that doctors suck and have a complete lack of empathy for people in pain that don’t have cancer or a broken bone. Two: a ton about internet protocol, IP addresses, VPNs, encryption, online anonymity, and how much bigger the internet is than I thought. Okay, so I maybe I learned more than two things.

Also learned that if you don’t want to writhe away in pain it is up to you, and only you, to take the management of your pain into your own hands. How to do this is tricky, but possible. The first rule of fight club pretty much stops me from discussing this any further, but if you ever get stuck in bed and have nothing but your wits and an internet connection to solve your pain, and these just aren’t cutting it, perhaps then I can bend this first rule a little. The club has to get new members somehow.