Names and Other Physically Painful Options
Whenever I see a poll on Twitter, I feel like the options given are usually either aimless, of little difference, have an obvious outlier, or are clearly made for fun with options that don’t really matter. I never really feel challenged by my options on these polls. I’ve always wanted to see a poll that really made you think about what you’re choosing. So yesterday, I ran a poll on my Twitter with the following inquiry:
None of the options listed above are all that painful, or even seemingly related. But if you really stop and think about what each option entails, you may start to realize that many things in life, even the most mundane and seemingly meaningless, are filled with boundless intricacies that tend to affect the way we live.
So how can any of these things be painful? And, for that matter, which is the most painful?
4th Place: Looking at the moon
This one seems completely harmless. We’ve all looked up at the moon in our lifetimes. For most people, it’s a pleasant experience. But have you ever looked directly at the moon with a powerful telescope? It actually hurts.
A few months ago I went to a local observatory and had the unique opportunity to view distant planets through the lens a powerful telescope. Eventually the man operating the telescope pointed it at the moon and advised me to use caution while looking at it. It was so bright that doing so burned my retina and caused a black spot to appear in my eye for a few minutes. He later went on to joke that many people came in to the observatory to look at the moon when it was full, only to have their eyes completely blasted. You often forget that the moon is reflecting the light of the sun. It’s actually very bright. The moon can hurt your eyes if you don’t take the right precautions when observing it.
Perhaps it is because so few people have looked at the moon in this way that so few have attested to it causing them pain.
3rd Place: Touching water
Water is part of who we are as humans. We need to touch it pretty much every day, and we are technically always touching it, since it is inside us. But no one can deny that it is dangerous. People drown in it. At low temperatures, water will damage your skin. If you’ve ever jumped into a freezing lake or river, you’ve experience the immediate physical pain first hand. And what’s more, scalding hot water causes burns and can easily kill you. Water needs to be a very specific temperature for humans to be able to touch it. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve recoiled in pain from my sink water being too hot. Everyone already knows about the dangers of water. This one hardly needs to be explained.
2nd Place: Using dishes
Not just washing dishes; using them. This entails everything about them. Buying them. Putting them in the cupboard. Taking them out of the cupboard and putting them on the table. Eating off of them. Washing them. Drying them. Stacking and reusing them over and over. It takes so much physical effort on part of the human being to continually use dishes that it borders on physical pain for some. Even the sound that a knife makes while cutting food, as it scratches the top of the dish, tends to cause a great deal of physical pain for one’s ears. And if you let the dishes pile up, as many often do, taking a full day to wash them all at once can leave your body and mind completely drained. This is why doing the dishes is widely considered a dreaded chore. Many people have been so pained by the use of dishes that they resort to eating off of paper plates, despite the environmental damage they cause. There is no doubt in my mind that the continual use of dishes has personally caused me some amount of pain throughout my lifetime.
At first I thought it was a little strange that the pain caused by dishes was greater for most people than that caused by water. However, I then considered that part of using dishes (cleaning them) often involves touching water. So not only does choosing this option encapsulate the pains of dish use and maintenance, but the pain involved in touching water as well. After all, to wash dishes properly in the sink, you often have to use very hot water, which can endanger the skin.
1st Place: Names
It came as no surprise to me that names were the most physically painful thing for people.
We’ve all heard the old saying: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” And we know that, in fact, the opposite is true. Words hurt most of all. Even if being called a name by someone else may not cause immediate physical damage, the emotional damage and stress it causes a person can easily affect their health and disrupt their daily routine. Being called a name may cause one to lose sleep, lose focus, or exert far too much mental energy contemplating the negative feelings that result from being called such a thing. Many people have gone so far as to harm themselves physically because of constant name calling in their day to day life. And it’s even worse for a person if that name calling is based on some sort of deep seated truth.
But the pain caused by names doesn’t stop at mere name calling. Even a person’s real name can cause physical damage. In fact, utilizing peoples’ real names is such a mental hassle for some that the effort it takes to do so causes even more stress than being personally insulted.
Every single person on Earth has a name. And as a human living in society, you are expected, upon meeting that person, to memorize their name immediately and never forget it for as long as you interact with them. This task is much easier said than done. Many times, upon meeting a person, I become so anxious about interacting with them that I forget their name immediately after they say it. Then, it’s an awkward situation for me when I have to ask for it again, sometimes twice. This often hurts me emotionally to the point where the feelings manifest physically in my body and I literally cringe from embarrassment. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the case for several others. People have struggled with names for ages and many play mental gymnastics with themselves and utilize a great deal of discipline to learn and remember the names of all the people they meet.
I can recall many times where I have avoided interaction with a person altogether, because I had forgotten their name, and it had been such a long time after meeting them that I was completely expected to have learned their name by then, so asking for it after all this time had passed would have given them the impression that either I didn’t care about their existence or that I was a forgetful fool that cannot be trusted with simple responsibilities.
Additionally, the concept of having the ability to name things presents a great deal of difficulty for people. Giving something or someone a name is a huge responsibility, as that name will stick with them for a very long time. Everyone, including the name-giver, will be forced to say that word whenever the existence of that entity is acknowledged. It is a lot of pressure. It is a decision made in a fleeting moment in time that will echo into eternity. Such immense pressure often causes great pain for people, as many will struggle in vain to find the “perfect” name.
On an even broader scale, the fact that we have names for everything in life presents a great deal of hassle. Every object, place, and living being in our lives has a word defining what it is. And it is our responsibility as humans to not only learn it, but memorize it so that we may effectively communicate ideas with each other about said objects, places, and living beings. This pressure to learn the “name” for everything can prove too much for some. In fact, most people in the world don’t know the names of every existing thing, and have to settle for learning the bare essentials, such as the objects and people that they interact with in their everyday lives. I know that I personally feel a great deal of pain whenever I forget the name of something, especially if I feel like I should know it. It creates a painful physical sensation where it feels as though the word is on the tip of my tongue, but never altogether intact.
Imagine a world where people and things do not have names. No one would be pressured to memorize anything. Ideas would not be talked about in the abstract, and communication would be stripped to its bare bones, as each thing or person would be referred to as “it”, “this”, “that”, “here”, “there”, “him”, or “her”. You would only be able to talk about things in the immediate vicinity. Here and now. You wouldn’t be able to effectively communicate about people and things that aren’t there, or the things that can, will, or did happen. You’d be living in the moment, with only the people that were in the moment with you. You wouldn’t be pressured to remember anything, nor given the responsibility to commit things into other peoples’ memories. More importantly, you’d never feel the physical pain resulting from said societal pressure. I am unable to even imagine a theoretical society that could develop without the use of names. But I can only hope that the people living in that society would be in a little less pain than we are all in right now.
