Trivia- Pain versus Itch

One Sunday morning in church, the local pastor while delivering his sermon asked a simple but quite profound question.

He simply asked, “What is the opposite of pain?” The congregation on hearing this was quite dumb founded.

Indeed, the simplest of questions are often the most profound.

Questions like: Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? What is your faith? And so on.

But by the way, what is the opposite of pain? Possible answers: Anti-pain? No pain or painless? Sorry-lah, all are not correct!

Did you know that the opposite of “pain” is actually “itch”? We didn’t know that until the said Pastor told us. That revelation raised some eye brows!

And when you have an “itch” say on your back where your fingers cannot reach, what would you do?

Naturally, you lean against a wall and try to scratch it by rubbing your back against the hard surface of the wall. But if you don’t succeed, what then?

The next best thing to do is to get your spouse or a friend if he or she can be found, to help scratch your back in order to eliminate that “itch”.

It is not the same like, “I scratch your back and you scratch mine,” in the proverbial or analogical sense.

A real “itch” actually cannot be covered up, unlike pain it has to be dealt with instantaneously before it will go away.

But one may ask, why was Pastor telling us such a silly story?

(1)to catch our attention; (2)to discover that the simplest questions are often the most profound; (3)learn to fix a simple problem quick; and (4) why don't you think about it.

What happens when you have had a good scratch right on the spot where your “itch” is?

The “itch” goes away and you feel a sense of completeness, a sort of satisfaction right away. But with pain, the remedy is not so simple. True or not?

It has been pointed out that pain reaches the heart with electrical speed but “itch” like truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier! Believe it or not is up to you.

But the next time you have an “itch”, don’t scratch it; tolerate it and see what I mean.

Cheers!

This song which I am presenting here is the Eurovison Song of 1964 sang by Gigliola Cinquetti, then a 16 year girl from Brazil. It's entitled, "Non Ho L'eta", music-video courtesy of "Jorgeyuk". Thanks to "Jorgeyuk" for sharing.