Painless

A while back I heard the deejays on a local Christian radio station talking about this new medicine that would make you not feel emotional pain. It might have been hypothetical - I tuned in late. At any rate, they were talking about whether or not it would be right to take such a medicine, and the benefits to feeling emotional pain.

Listening to that program was quite memorable, because it made me grapple with the concept, too. Life without pain does sound tempting, for sure. But what I've learned is that when you do things to numb the emotion of pain, there's no barrier specifically blocking just that one emotion. Your brain doesn't discriminate the good from the bad. When you block emotions, even if you start out blocking the bad ones, the good ones eventually follow suit.

Life without any emotion is certainly safer than life with its ups and downs. But are the ups worth the downs?