​LIDOCAINE FOR THE SOUL

Wisdom Wherever You Find It
 
The story makes the pain more tolerable.   Dr. Valerie Larkin
 
Human beings love stories.  When all is said and done, it is not the opposable thumb or language or the proclivity to believe conspiracy theories that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.  It is stories.
 
I used to think it was the ability to transmit knowledge without direct experience, but that is just pretentious way to say “stories.”  Everyone loves stories, and the most beloved members of our societies are the storytellers.  We are most honest when we acknowledge them for telling us tales – authors, filmmakers, musicians, painters, sculpturers, dancers – that they create to co-opt our imaginations and plunge us into the delight that comes from being led to a corner of our minds we had not yet explored.  But sometimes we give them different names like politician, researcher, advocate, clergy.  They indulge our desire to be told stories that we can imagine are far from fiction and, therefore, describe our reality.
 
And human beings suffer pain. Pain is a necessary part of life. Physical pain serves a dual function for us.  It warns us of external danger.  One of our kids used to love to crawl under the dining room table.  We would always say, “Don’t stand up.”  For a while, it would be followed by a bang and a wail.  The pain eventually persuaded the little one of what the instructions could not. Pain also alerts us when something is wrong within our bodies. From a strained muscle to a kidney stone, there is no denying when our bodies are communicating something to us.  What we do with that information is ours to decide.
 
And then there are stories we tell ourselves when we are feeling pain.  Many of them are spurred by the faith or superstitions that are handed to us by others.  A debate in the Talmud took place almost 2000 years ago about why people suffer.  One rabbi claimed that all suffering is deserved, but it is meted out on a sort of sliding scale; the more righteous the person, the smaller the infraction that provokes pain.  The other rabbi insisted that pain brings us closer to God who empathizes with human suffering.  The debate is left unresolved.
 
But some of the stories we tell ourselves contextualize the pain.  Why does my heart ache?  Because she loves someone else, because he dumped me.  Why do I lash out at my boss even when the criticism is legit?  I am never appreciated for what I do right, which more than balances the negatives.  Why have I failed to achieve my goal? Well, a long time ago…
 
Dr. Larkin is a therapist who listens patiently to the stories her clients bring to her.  Then she asks questions, which can be uncomfortable. But in the end, it is all about identifying the pain.  The goal, I imagine, is mitigating the pain rather than distracting from it with the story. Because, as she says, the story makes the pain more tolerable.
 
And here’s the point: stories are not bad.  They are, however, stories.  A narrative is not necessarily fiction, neither is it inherently fact.  Each one blazes a path from beginning to (presumed) end that may be well-trod or the road less taken.  The delight of a story is that it explores a possibility without exhausting others.  As enlightenment, provocation, entertainment or a dozen other functions, a story serves well.  As explanation…not always. 
 
I am not accusing you of willful self-delusion.  As a human family, and as subgroups of that family, we have used stories to make sense of our world and the pain we understand as inevitable.  Backbreaking work and the trauma involved in bearing a child is a lot more tolerable if our story involves being created in the divine image and suffering for our disobedience.  But alleviating the pain seems to me to be the wiser goal than justifying the story.  Any story once told can be retold, with a story.
 
As I began, human beings love stories, and for very good reason.  They are an affirmation of what makes us human.  They allow us to explore the life we traverse, sometimes providing us with insight and sometimes serving as placebo.   The inevitable pain of life, whether physical or emotional, is a fact.  It may be managed by stories we are told or we tell ourselves, but it should never be masked.  Stories are much more enjoyable without the pain.

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