Positive Look At Pain

In the View from the Ark column of the Catholic Times, a college professor gives the readers some insight into pain from his reading in Hans Gadamer, a philosopher, raised as a Protestant, born in Germany in 1900 and died in 2002.  

Gadamer inherited the artistic passion and religious solidarity of his mother Johanna, who died when he was four years old, but his father, Johannes Gadamer, a chemist and pharmacist, did not understand this thinking.

One person is recuperating for several years due to a physical condition, and another suffers from a severe toothache. A woman is recovering after having her calcified gallbladder removed, and a person is receiving treatment for a curved spine. In Korea, doctors accompanying them are experiencing a huge conflict with the government regarding the number of seats in medical schools. How do we deal with those suffering?

Just before his death from lung cancer at the age of 61, his father was concerned about his son, who had received his doctorate at the young age of 22 and was pursuing his professorship, choosing Heidegger as his teacher. He had Heidegger come to the hospital where he was admitted and asked: "What can my son possibly do after studying like this?" Heidegger answered: "Your son is  outstanding... and he has already submitted his thesis to enter the professorship program." His father, who did not think that philosophy would help  his son to live, asked Heidegger again just before he left: "Do you truly believe that philosophy has the answers to life's questions?"  

However, Gadamer, unlike his father who chose the world of natural science, became a master in the principle of interpretation in the realm of philosophy, integrating artistic sensibility and mediating the wisdom and fulfillment of life to many people. His 1960 work 'Truth and Method' is considered a seminal piece that opened the horizon of existential hermeneutics.

When he was 100 years old, he gave a presentation on ‘pain’ at the Heidelberg Medical School in front of medical professionals. He said: "Pain first appears to me as an emotion that I cannot bear. There is always something completely unresolved that we must overcome. In this sense, pain is perhaps a tremendous opportunity finally imposed on us to resolve something. The most unique dimension of life can be anticipated in the very pain that one has not overcome."

He then spoke about the panacea of the pain process, which modern medicine finds difficult to provide. "Here, I also see the most dangerous thing of the technological age. That is, technology underestimates our strength and no longer demands that we fully exert our abilities. However, on the contrary, there is the joy of having done well and overcome and the joy of eventually feeling healthy again. The joy of having overcome and stayed awake, and the joy of being immersed in that wakefulness is the finest medicine nature has given us."

This corresponds to what Pope Francis said: "God has united us to all his creatures. Nonetheless, the technocratic paradigm can isolate us from the world that surrounds us and deceive us by making us forget that the entire world is a 'contact zone'."

For Gadamer, pain is an opportunity for one to save oneself. Pain is something that makes life healthy, a sense of vitality that 'can do', and allows one to experience their unique ability to achieve again. Therefore, the doctor does not exist to remove pain, but rather, it is necessary to support and accompany the person suffering from pain to become aware of the tremendous powers within themselves and to overcome pain to achieve another goal. 

What do your readers think? This is the question the writer leaves us.