Henry Marken
Patrick Swayze once said, “Pain don’t hurt.” I think we all have a bit of Swayze in us until we meet an instance of pain right in the eye. If I said “Pain don’t hurt” in an attempt to comfort my friend after I just shot him in the eye with an air-soft gun, I think he would have knifed me in the stomach. That pain most definitely hurt. But there are some types of pain that we actually enjoy, no matter how painful these instances may be. Below is a list I compiled of some types of pain that humans not only find pleasure in, but cannot get enough of.
Sports Pain:
Lions fans, Browns fans, Knicks fans, and any fan of Chicago sports for that matter know what I’m talking about. Every year is the same. You can hardly count down the days until the beginning of the next season and you couldn’t be more optimistic about the team’s potential. Next thing you know, you’re not even two months into the season before you are already thinking about the next season. Or better yet, the team puts a little end-of-the-season run together to either barely miss the playoffs or make the playoffs only to get absolutely swamped on national television. Sports misery will actually leave some fans in a crippling depression with the only cure being the start of the (you guessed it) next season. Unfortunately the cycle continues, yet we welcome this carousel of death with open arms. Or at least, I do.
Gambling:
This one is hilarious. The pain that gambling causes is one hundred— excuse me, one million percent self inflicted. If you take away the context of what sports I’m gambling on and you just watch the security footage of me at the casino, it’s just me walking up to the sportsbook station and handing the dude money. I’m not buying anything. I’m just handing him STRAIGHT CASH like a fucking philanthropist. Same with my bookie on my phone, just an outward flow of cash that I’m willingly giving away. Except I’m not donating to any good causes, I’m just handing shit out into the gambling world. March Madness is iconic. According to my bank statements, I’m just paying for imaginary bills when March rolls around. That’s what it feels like at least. Science has literally proven that human beings cannot gamble and most certainly cannot accurately measure probability. That is why Las Vegas exists. They are like vultures, just munching on our pain and devouring our carcasses… except it was our own lust to profit from gambling that got us tied to a stake for some vulture to swoop in and have a feast.
Haha, ‘profit from gambling’… that three-word sentence doesn’t even exist.
Eating:
If you have ever eaten dessert after a huge meal, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. You could be about ready to pop, but if someone offers you a little Cinnabon or some Krispy Kreme action, or even a cookie, you’re gonna stuff your face if you are craving some sweets. If you go past stomach capacity, however, you will run into some self inflicted pain. I mean, it’s just basic physics; if you have a limited amount of space and you add more matter inside, there may be some force involved. Force can be painful. But we do it anyways and we have to come to invite this pain so much that this very idea has created one of the greatest holidays in human history: Thanksgiving.
Being Hungover:
I mean you never go out drinking and pray right before your first drink that you won’t wake up hungover the next morning. Obviously no one drinks for the purpose of waking up hungover the next morning. That would be fucking crazy. But sometimes, there’s just nothing you could have done to prevent it. Maybe you lost track of your shots, you saw an old friend at the bar, you were trying to flirt with someone light-years out of your league and you needed a little enhancement, or… you just had a normal night of drinking, but somehow a round of tequila shots made its way into the mix. The storm was always coming. There are definitely ways to avoid waking up with a hangover, as the amount you drink is entirely in your control… but you go out every night knowing it’s a possibility; you could piss away an entire paycheck just so that you could wake up with a headache the next morning. Seriously, sometimes you are literally paying to waste your entire next day to throw up whatever you drank. But we do it anyway because the fear of the pain we may get will never deter us away from the fun that we will get.
Wow, ‘the fun that we will get.’ If only drinking were that automatic. I didn’t even account for the possibility that you’re six shots in and you text your ex, only to open up Pandora’s box of entirely new evils. Then again, that’s another pain that we welcome with open arms.
