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CIP - The Paradox of Pain

      
      Ashlyn Blocker, a kindergarten girl (back in 2012), is one of the very few people known to be diagnosed with CIPA or congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis (that is, the inability to sweat normally, which means your body can't cool itself which leads to overheating of the body and a lot of other complications) - a disease caused by genetic mutation that makes it impossible for her to feel pain, heat or cold.

      While that might seem like a convenient disease to have, Ashlyn's parents feel that their child has been "cursed" with the disease of not being able to feel pain at all. One of the many things they stated about how harmful her disease could be was, "When her baby teeth arrived she would chew her lips bloody in her sleep, bite through her tongue while eating and once even stuck a finger in her mouth and stripped flesh from it."

      But that was confusing. How could the absence of pain itself mean a painful experience? May be because pain is essential. Pain, by scientific definition, is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience that is associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in such terms. Put in simple words, pain is your body telling you that something is wrong. Pain is your brain sending you signals, begging for you to know that some part of you needs attention - and that could be emotional pain too.

      If your life is only ups with no downs then you would get so used to those ups that you would get into a state of inertia, not being able to feel any of those "ups" or pleasures anymore. It takes a little bit of a "down" to appreciate an "up". (That is also why so many people who've had too many downs tend to become numb. Why? Because that emotional state has become their state of inertia making them not feel anything anymore.)

      Might we be people who would be insane enough to see pain from a whole new perspective and be grateful for it?

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