Pain Obsession Today

I feel the aches and pains of getting older, even at a mere 29 years of age.

So how does the pain stack up against pain throughout history? I mean, our pains are probably relatively weak sauce compared to what people had to deal with not 100 years ago.

The problem is that now everyone feels they have a license to complain about every splinter and now every stubbed toe is the end of the world.

Of course back before the regulation of hard drugs such as Opiates and such, one could buy liquid cough syrup with Opium in it, and give it to your kids to keep them doped out of their minds. Coke had cocaine in it, and as long as you had that 10 extra cents you could get rip-snorting high and wired off as many bottles as you could drink (at least I imagine, I’m too lazy to link or do any research at the moment).

In the past, most of America were farmers. They shut the fuck up and got the job done, regardless of if the backbreaking work of the previous day made them hurt in every joint and walk a little slow.

Back in the old west days, you could self-medicate with Alcohol. Of course if that made you short-tempered and hasty to duel, so be it. Get up, have a large snort from the whiskey bottle to steady yourself. Couple shots with breakfast. Go to work shoe-ing horses or whatever, finish the flask your wife packed with your lunch. Get off work, go home for dinner with a couple drinks, then head out to the saloon for some hell-raising with the boys and the serious drinking.

In further history, Beer was the safest thing to drink because they would boil the water used to make it. Water got you sick, beer was a health drink.

As things have gotten easier with the advances we have made as society, harder drugs have become criminalized and more controlled, and people have become less and less likely to lose life and limb at work. But we still do things our bodies were not designed to do, sitting in an office chair all day. As we age our bodies decline, we lose the cartilidge used to cushion our joints. Gravity bears down on us daily, and our spines try to decompress at night while we sleep.

So, too, has it gotten easier and more socially acceptable to complain about our ailments. From the beginnings of human commerce, it’s been potions and chemicals and foods and pills sold to cure what ails ye.

Fraud and quackery are alive and well today, and there’s plenty of gullible souls that buy into stupid crap and pyramid schemes such as Amway and Quixtar (whatever they are called this week).

Eventually, you’ll get to some serious pain, but no one will take you seriously because you’ve been complaining for so long and so hard. Hurting means you’re alive. So be glad for it because 1. It’s not near as bad as your ancestors had it. & 2. All that suffering you do sitting through church services doesn’t guarantee that there actually is any ‘life after death.’

Is your belly full? Do you have safe shelter for the night? Then you’re ahead of many people in the world.