Tuesday, July 15, 2008

blame it on the purple dinosaur

Knowledge Gap Hypothesis states that although separated by socio-economic status, children across the spectrum may learn traits from the media, specifically child-targetted television shows and commercials. This phenonenon accounts for certain cross-spectrum trends: obesity, decrease in reading, and violence.

I submit that one thing we all picked up from the media is pain avoidance. How else can you explain such a common thread?

Being the sheltered child I was, I missed out on many seemingly necessary media experiences. Perhaps this will account for my strange relationship with pain.

I was that girl on the playground poking the bee's nest to see if they would bite me. I touched hot curling irons, stepped on poison ivy with my bare feet, and listened to my dad when he said to eat a piece of fruit he picked up off the ground in Hawaii (resulting in a swollen, numb tongue) or jump off that 40 foot cliff cause it wouldn't hurt. (Yeah right, Father. Ever heard of a belly flop? Still painful, 15 years later.)

That trend of pushing my limits carried into adulthood as I give up things because I know it will teach me some lesson (i.e. chocolate for 6 months. The consequence of that? DEPRESSION.)

Most of the time, I think I am just weird. A weird, pain loving masochist. BUT THEN (!) comes the emblazened Rod Dial in my mind searching for any benefit of the doubt to give myself. Here it is.

Pain is God's creation to remind us of our humanity. Pain isn't bad. Pain tells us when to stop. Pain has our back. He wants attention every once in a while, but not too much, and not for prolonged periods of time. Anywhere you are, pain has been there first. He understands that we will flee as soon as we've had enough. He ain't high maintanence. He's got plenty of beaus.

Pain is my freakin' boyfriend, and he's taught me a lot through the years. We're breaking up today because I'm turning over a new leaf. Its called pain-avoidance, a sport participated in by at 6 billion people, and I'm stepping into the ring.

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