you must be everything for me –
you be my science,
my philosophy
Pain is absurd
From The Tragedy of the Leaves, a poem by Charles Bukowski:
“what was needed now was a good comedian, ancient style,
a jester with jokes upon absurd pain;
pain is absurd because it exists, nothing more”
No Pleasure Without Pain
From the poem “No Pleasure Without Pain” by Sir Walter Raleigh:
“What life were love, if love were free from pain?
But oh that pain with pleasure matched should meet!”
On Pain
On Pain, a poem by Khalil Gibran
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
My bird of pain
From Companion, a poem by Charles Bukowski
a bird no one wants.
he’s mine.
my bird of pain.
he doesn’t sing.
that bird
swaying on the
bough.
Pain expands the time
Pain Expands The Time, a poem by Emily Dickinson
Pain — expands the Time —
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain —
Pain contracts — the Time —
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not —
Pain is real
From: In Time of War, XIV, a poem by W. H. Auden
Yes, we are going to suffer, now; the sky
Throbs like a feverish forehead; pain is real
Pain has an element of blank
Pain has an Element of Blank; poem by Emily Dickinson
Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.
Pain is the sign for something not answered
Ivan Illich, The Nemesis of Medicine:
“Pain is the sign for something not answered; it refers to something open, something that goes on the next moment to demand, What is wrong? How much longer? Why must I/ought I/should I/can I/ suffer?”
I have given a name to my pain
Friedrich Nietzsche, My Dog. The Gay Science:
“I have given a name to my pain, and call it “dog”. It is just as faithful, just as importunate and shameless, just as entertaining, just as wise, as any other dog and I can domineer over it, and vent my bad humour on it, as others do with their dogs, servants, and wives.”
THE PAIN PROJECT 