Nostalgia is a bitter wine; and when tipsy, the mind perceives differently. Surroundings are warped; childhood memories are frescoes of unalloyed joy. It is nostalgia that ills the mind. No pain can be greater than the one we manufacture for ourselves - products of extravagant sadness, furnished out of pure happiness, and strengthened by time! I'm reminded of Schopenhauer's ultimate belief in pain as the enforcer of feeling, or "being." For him, pain delivers us closer to the reality of existence, because, as its causative effect, pain enables us to receive the world in the most genuine way. It is pain that allows us to interact with the underlining forces of "being," and through this brief state of displeasure, we experience a feeling of inexplicable aversion - yet, it is this strong, deep reaction that reinforces our "feeling of being." Take, for instance, a small brook flowing incessantly along a narrow, linear furrow. Its natural course is that of necessary progressive motion, and unchallenged, the water will move at exactly the same pace until its course is interrupted or obstructed. When the motion of the water is startled, or challenged, it is impelled to a different course - one more hectic, and most usually chaotic. But it can be argued that chaos feeds the Will of reality - and so this organic discrepancy actually works to the Will of a natural, cosmic aim. Schopenhauer's conviction posits pain as a universal agent, one that causatively drives our species forward. Without pain, our contentedness would prevent us from moving forward, or, in the case of the brook, moving forward with purpose against a reaming ennui. Schopenhauer offered our increasing apathy in its present state as evidence of our inability to entertain the position of pessimism as a viable philosophical candidate. Or, simply, he believed that, as a species, we are intrinsically obliged to consider our existence as a validation for existing - but such a thing is farce, merely the predisposition of a logically reluctant mind. At bottom, pain is the life principle, energizing us with the spirit of incorporeal reality and beckoning to point our ears at the disorderly tones of raw existence.
But pain is usually transient. At least, the physical pains. The lesser pains.
-X
