The braking is sudden as we enter the Liminal Waystation. As you are thrust slightly forward, your head connects with the seatback in front of you. You are jostled after long hours of stillness. It hurts. Or does it feel kind of good? It’s so hard to tell sometimes.
It’s time to explore the space
Between Pleasure and Pain
The word pleasure has a fairly straightforward etymology. It simply means to please, and that word means simply, “to seem good.” Pleasure is linked with reward. We’re likely to repeat an action that is accompanied with pleasure.
Pain is a little more complicated etymologically speaking. The Middle English word pain means specifically, suffering inflicted as punishment for an offense. That meaning has changed over time with pain now being used to describe an undesirable physical or emotional sensation regardless of whether or not it is inflicted as a kind of punishment. The word punishment is apt though, because punishment is meant as a deterrent and pain serves a similar function.
What might surprise you to learn is that both sensations arise from the same area of the brain – the ventral pallidum. Certain neurons promote the avoidance of pain and others the pursuit of reward. Some scenarios activate both responses and the particulars of the situation dictate which is the strongest response.
While we’re talking about rewards rather than outright pleasure, and the avoidance of pain rather than pain itself, studies that show the connection between these two experiences in the brain are important. They show how delicate the balance is and how easily the lines can begin to blur.
What’s more is that the body releases endorphins to combat the sensation of pain so that an activity that initially causes hurt can come to feel pleasurable on a long enough timeline. Running is a prime example. The release of lactic acid can lead to intense cramping, but this is eventually followed by the endorphins that act as a kind of opiate, relieving the discomfort.
The body does a magnificent job of keeping us upright and functional when pain threatens to disable us. And why not? Our survival so often depended on it.
Have you ever taken a bath so hot it caused your skin to redden, relaxed into the nearly scalding water, and sighed a deep breath of contentment? We adapt and the line between pleasure and pain is thinner than we’d sometimes like to believe.
But just because pleasure feels good doesn’t means it maximizes good for us and just because something hurts doesn’t mean we shouldn’t sometimes endure it. When does pleasure become a new kind of pain, too intense to be really enjoyed? When does pain become a kind of pleasure and what can this keep us from acknowledging? Things can become terrifying when we don’t know what we’re feeling and why.
That’s why the space between pleasure and pain is an undeniable liminal space, a no-man’s land of sensation and instinct motivated by forces we don’t always understand.
Book Recommendation
His Pain
by Wrath James White
Pain and pleasure take a central role in the plot of His Pain by Wrath James White.
Here’s the description:
Life is pain . . . . . . or at least it is for Jason. Born with a rare central nervous disorder, every sensation is pain. Every sound, scent, texture, flavor, even every breath, brings nothing but mind-numbing pain. His days are spent in a padded room addicted to every narcotic known to man. At night he is sealed in a sensory deprivation bag to block out the entire world. Pain is all Jason has ever known about the world. Until the arrival of Yogi Arjunda of the Temple of Physical Enlightenment. He claims to be able to help Jason, to be able to give him a life of more than agony. But the treatment leaves Jason changed and he wants to share what he learned. He wants to share his pain . . . From hardcore horror master Wrath James White, comes a novella of pain, pleasure, and transcendental splatter.
Writing Exercise
Write a scene that begins with intense pain and ends with a pleasureful reimagining of the same experience. Or write a scene that begins with pleasure that metamorphoses into pain.
