What can you say about a day that centers around a root canal? I succeeded in breathing through any associated pain--either a testament to my ability to avoid the suffering of suffering, or there was no nerve alive up there in the first place.
Now, it occurs to me that sometimes we focus on what's missing. I didn't have the pain I expected, I didn't need to focus on that. I only needed to accept what was there, a simple dental procedure, and not what was missing. Thinking more about that, I went looking for some original thoughts on the subject. I found it--there's a book about the paranormal that addresses this very issue. People look for explanations in what isn't there. They try to explain unexplained things that happen with some other theory, like an unknown force that is steering or causing things that cannot be explained. There are a host of mental leaps that people make or are encouraged to make at times like that. In the paranormal world, it comes about when people begin seeing what they want to see. In the face of vague pronouncements people have proven again and again that most will choose to fill in with new meaning they came looking for.
Practitioners of the art of persuading others they can predict their future resort to flattery, double-headed (or ambiguous) statements and deliberately keep things vague. The persons being tricked--there is no better word--simply choose among the meanings offered the one they wish to believe. In the end, it is the human ego that is fed and watered with what isn't there, allowing them to fill in the blanks.
So what about my root canal? I could choose to believe I have a high tolerance for pain, but the realist in me says, I don't know, but it is more likely just a lucky day. I'll take that and enjoy it more than making believe I can withstand pain more easily than others. The latter sounds like cruisin' for a bruisin' to me.
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