Pains of Love
… be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.
Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
Ev'n the tears they shed alone
Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.
- John Dryden (1631–1700)
Several years ago, I wanted to be a doctor. Or my parents wanted me to be a doctor. One or the other – the line got very blurred along the way.
In any case, I ended up at Kings College School of Medicine and Dentistry – best medical school in London and soon to become the largest medical school in Europe*. Yup. Oh, it was a grand time. Getting drunk with loose nurses, commanding the respect of other – oh, so lowly – students in other degrees, learning an expanse of information that is genuinely important to anybody that’s still alive (and some pertinent to the dead, too). But then, there were factors which turned me off the medical degree. Lectures from nine till five, day in, day out. Exams every other lecture. The gradual foreshadowing of (another) ten year’s solid work. The brain-stifling, parrot-fashion learning and lack of time for anything but.
I quit medical school after I completed the first year. But I didn’t have to set my listed pros and cons against each other to make that decision.
No, the decision was made after I realised how much it was desensitising me to human nature.
Most people don’t know this, but carving up a recently dead corpse several times a week teaches you a thing or two about mortality. One the one hand, to respect it, but contradictorily to disrespect it. That is; to realise that your time is finite and respect that, and to become used to seeing cadavers and disrespect the dead. Not so bad when you consider that the dead can’t feel insulted by your callous nonchalance (unless, of course, you spill wine over into the open casket at the wake and drunkenly state to the flustering widow “why clean it, the cunt’s dead?” – learnt the hard way on that one). But when you extend this thought to the living, well… Once you’ve met a thousand cancer patients, you soon see them in a different light to any normal person: “Deadweight on funds”. A mother cradling her still-born child? “Give her a sedative and get her out”. Recovering heroin addict? “Fucknut”
Okay, so recovering heroin addicts are dithering fucknuts, but you get the idea. Doctors are pretty insensate.
So I quit medicine because it was desensitising me to what makes us human. Or maybe I quit because the money was shit and I wanted to be rich. One or the other – the line got very blurred along the way. But that’s not important! The overall point is valid – that losing sensitivity is a bad thing.
Over the course of what seems like several billion failed relationships (though it was only two or three), all involving girls with quite frightening reserves of bintishness, I’ve lost a great deal of sensitivity when it comes to the pains of love.
Pains of love. The word “pains” there is an important distinction. I’m still sensitive to love itself… Okay, perhaps I’m losing you. Check it:
Just as working with death every day brings a respect for life whilst you have it, dealing with break-ups every day brings a respect for love whilst you have it. But just as seeing the dead every day brings insensitivity to death itself, dealing with your heart being forcibly removed by little steel worms before they cart it, giggling, into the eternal conflagration makes you insensitive to that sort of thing.
But is this insensitivity to pain good or bad?
The obvious answer is that it’s good. You’re more protected, more calm in the face of evil, less liable to knee-jerk against it and more quick to recover when the inevitable happens and you get fucked over. Sounds great, sign me up.
But then, what about the fact you don’t react when something bad happens? If it’s singularly bad for you (say, them shagging your best friend), won’t they think you’re a doormat when you get over it quite quickly? If it’s mutually bad for the relationship (say, long distance or similar trials of love), won’t your partner think you’re a shit if you don’t care as much as them? And if push comes to shove, isn’t it bad for you if you can’t feel the pain of a break-up as clearly as others, and therefore let things go or crumble simply because you don’t have the aversion to the pain of doing so?
Haven’t you just lost quite a large part of your humanity?
Ah well.
* That’s as it stood at the time – now it’s turned into GKT. Second-rate, common rubbish. All fell apart after I left.
Than all other pleasures are.
Sighs which are from lovers blown
Do but gently heave the heart:
Ev'n the tears they shed alone
Cure, like trickling balm, their smart:
Lovers, when they lose their breath,
Bleed away in easy death.
- John Dryden (1631–1700)
Several years ago, I wanted to be a doctor. Or my parents wanted me to be a doctor. One or the other – the line got very blurred along the way.
In any case, I ended up at Kings College School of Medicine and Dentistry – best medical school in London and soon to become the largest medical school in Europe*. Yup. Oh, it was a grand time. Getting drunk with loose nurses, commanding the respect of other – oh, so lowly – students in other degrees, learning an expanse of information that is genuinely important to anybody that’s still alive (and some pertinent to the dead, too). But then, there were factors which turned me off the medical degree. Lectures from nine till five, day in, day out. Exams every other lecture. The gradual foreshadowing of (another) ten year’s solid work. The brain-stifling, parrot-fashion learning and lack of time for anything but.
I quit medical school after I completed the first year. But I didn’t have to set my listed pros and cons against each other to make that decision.
No, the decision was made after I realised how much it was desensitising me to human nature.
Most people don’t know this, but carving up a recently dead corpse several times a week teaches you a thing or two about mortality. One the one hand, to respect it, but contradictorily to disrespect it. That is; to realise that your time is finite and respect that, and to become used to seeing cadavers and disrespect the dead. Not so bad when you consider that the dead can’t feel insulted by your callous nonchalance (unless, of course, you spill wine over into the open casket at the wake and drunkenly state to the flustering widow “why clean it, the cunt’s dead?” – learnt the hard way on that one). But when you extend this thought to the living, well… Once you’ve met a thousand cancer patients, you soon see them in a different light to any normal person: “Deadweight on funds”. A mother cradling her still-born child? “Give her a sedative and get her out”. Recovering heroin addict? “Fucknut”
Okay, so recovering heroin addicts are dithering fucknuts, but you get the idea. Doctors are pretty insensate.
So I quit medicine because it was desensitising me to what makes us human. Or maybe I quit because the money was shit and I wanted to be rich. One or the other – the line got very blurred along the way. But that’s not important! The overall point is valid – that losing sensitivity is a bad thing.
Over the course of what seems like several billion failed relationships (though it was only two or three), all involving girls with quite frightening reserves of bintishness, I’ve lost a great deal of sensitivity when it comes to the pains of love.
Pains of love. The word “pains” there is an important distinction. I’m still sensitive to love itself… Okay, perhaps I’m losing you. Check it:
Just as working with death every day brings a respect for life whilst you have it, dealing with break-ups every day brings a respect for love whilst you have it. But just as seeing the dead every day brings insensitivity to death itself, dealing with your heart being forcibly removed by little steel worms before they cart it, giggling, into the eternal conflagration makes you insensitive to that sort of thing.
But is this insensitivity to pain good or bad?
The obvious answer is that it’s good. You’re more protected, more calm in the face of evil, less liable to knee-jerk against it and more quick to recover when the inevitable happens and you get fucked over. Sounds great, sign me up.
But then, what about the fact you don’t react when something bad happens? If it’s singularly bad for you (say, them shagging your best friend), won’t they think you’re a doormat when you get over it quite quickly? If it’s mutually bad for the relationship (say, long distance or similar trials of love), won’t your partner think you’re a shit if you don’t care as much as them? And if push comes to shove, isn’t it bad for you if you can’t feel the pain of a break-up as clearly as others, and therefore let things go or crumble simply because you don’t have the aversion to the pain of doing so?
Haven’t you just lost quite a large part of your humanity?
Ah well.
* That’s as it stood at the time – now it’s turned into GKT. Second-rate, common rubbish. All fell apart after I left.
posted by Juliet is Bleeding... | 11:49 am
were good note for the broken hearts....!