Shadow of Pain

For the last couple days, I have felt generally sick and nauseous. It's a regular, if annoying, thing for me. Today, as I was headed home from work, I got stopped at the longest light along my commute. As I was waiting for the eternity is seems to take for my turn to come around, I felt a strong pain just below my ribcage, kind of near the bottom of the sternum. It was very uncomfortable, but I wasn't worried, because this is also a common occurrence for me when I feel nauseous.

As I pondered the pain, I wondered how a person who didn't understand what the pain was would react.  It hurt quite a bit, and I can see a person being alarmed.  A child might even cry. If it got stronger, an adult might cry, too. As with most pain, I can see someone being willing to do anything to stop the pain, and how hypocritical it is of someone who has never felt that pain as strongly to withhold such relief.

For those who haven't guessed it yet, I am actually talking about hunger.  For me, when I reach a certain point of hunger, I generally feel a strong pain in my stomach. Not usually any noises or rumbling, just pain.  When I feel nauseous, however, my aversion to eating disconnects the association between that pain and a desire for food.  My hunger pains tend to get strong because I am not eating as much as I normally do, and it takes a while for me to notice that the pain isn't just part of my general feeling of illness and blah. Such as it was today.

I thought about my new nephew, and how upset he is when he's hungry.  He cries and screams. What if he cries not really because he is hungry, but because he is in pain? He doesn't really understand that food is what gets rid of that pain.  All he knows is it hurts! His mother understands, of course, and his instincts to suckle save him from the pain.  Eventually, he will understand the pain is hunger.  He will understand when he feels that pain he wants food. When he starts being able to communicate, he will have more of a say in his reaction to that pain. He will be able  to indicate he wants food before he reaches the point of crying.

Then I thought about what it might be like as a baby.  I don't remember anything from when I was a baby, like most people. But I think about what a child is capable of, and the time it takes them to learn things, and imagine what it would be like to suddenly have a body.  We started as intelligences in the Pre-Existence, pass through a veil and get a new body. You have to learn to control it.  You have to learn how to process and understand all the signals and information you are getting from your senses.  You have to learn what the body is telling you.  You feel pain, but you don't know what pain is.  It overwhelms your new senses, and unable to do anything or understand this new sensation, your body takes over and you cry.

Thinking about such things really helps me get a new perspective on my life, as an almost-25-year-old.  How dextrous I am. How integrated with my body my spirit is. How far I've come in mere development, physically and mentally.

And how long that stupid light is.

Fearful Shadow

I had a revelation a little while ago.

I'm Fight.

You know, as in "Fight or Flight."

This revelation has had mixed reactions from those I've told, on Facebook and in real life. Some curiosity, some levity, some feigned optimism. Some behave as though I am somehow better off than if I was Flight. That it is preferred to be Fight. Thinking back on how I made my discovery, I think I have to disagree.

I have known for a long time that I dislike sparring in Taekwondo. Our sparring isn't even that serious, typically. We wear padded gear just in case, but especially by the time you are a black belt, you should have enough control to barely touch your opponent, even in a regular match.

One evening, we were practicing Tournament sparring. Tournament sparring is different from Testing sparring in that you don't even really touch your opponent at all in Testing. You are just showing off your moves to the Judges. In Tournament, your goal is to get points by hitting allowed areas (chest above belt, kick to head, kick to chest or side). Three points and the match is over. But even then, all you have to do is make contact, typically with just enough sound that the officials can tell you got a hit.

The woman I was sparring with was NOT doing Tournament sparring. She is the same belt level as me, and about 6-8 inches shorter. When it came time for us to spar (we rotate around the whole group) she was going all out. Ignoring the illegal hits to my back, even her legal hits were VERY hard. I don't have the chest guard (it was a new addition to the style since I bought my gear), but I know that even if I did, they would have been hard hits. She also managed to keep punching the exact same spot on my chest. It hurt!

The only thing I could do was fight back. I tried to increase my hit strength. I had to. I had to hit harder. I did my best to fight back at the level she was attacking with, even though I am not as good as her (illegal hits notwithstanding).

When the stop was finally called on our match, and another two called forward, I went back to my spot and knelt down, shaking and holding the sore spot where she kept hitting me.

I was scared.
I was traumatized!

Class ended immediately afterward, I packed up my gear and went out to my car. Then I sat in the driver's seat and cried. I cried! It was so traumatic that without any thoughts in my head, I cried for a good five minutes.

The next class I went to was not going to include sparring. But when I arrived early, the class before ours was sparring. As I stretched and watched/not-watched them, my hand began to tremble. I was still so traumatized that even being in the same room as people sparring bothered me.

After that class, I explained to my teacher that I was going to be gone for a class (because of work) and mentioned how terrifying the experience was to me. He told me that many adults go too hard, but if both halves enjoy it, he won't stop them. To him, because I was hitting back as hard as her, it looked like I was enjoying the fight.

It was after I tried explaining the experience to another person that I realized what had happened. As with any other fights I have been in during my life (not very many, thankfully), including poking fights that get too serious, I felt like I had to hit back. That somehow, not hitting back, or running away were just not options. I had to win. Because losing was not an option, it was the same as death. Hence the Fight in "Fight or Flight."

Now, how is Fight better than Flight? Both courses of action are brought about by great fear. Fear for your life, your safety.

The only advantage I can think of is if you are attacked by a rapist. With Fight, you might be able to escape because rapists typically don't expect or want a fight, while they expect Flight and can typically overpower it. But even then, the trauma of attack is the same (ignoring the additional trauma if the attack succeeds).

As I think about it, most people don't know what they are. We are typically safe, living without the base, primal fear for our lives. It makes sense to me that an American culture would value Fight over Flight because of the "cowardice" of Flight.

But to me, they are one and the same. Fear.