|
I took this quote simply to mean that in the absence of pain, one could not know or appreciate its counterpart. With the exception of Bill Murray's character in Caddyshack and others like him (you'll recall that as a tip, he was promised to receive true enlightenment) we experience life in terms of dualities...happy and sad; hot and cold; good and evil; and so on. I have chronic pain from OA in my knees, and the only knowledge I take from it is that it hurts like hell sometimes, and I could do without it...I also miss getting around a tennis court like I used to. It's both overly simplistic and innacurate to say that life is pain and pain is knowledge (sounds cool to say it though, and I liked the Princess Bride a lot). Knowledge is a function of becoming informed through life experience, which admittedly may include pain, but encompasses much more than that.
|