Pain surrounds us in many forms—loss, death, and the recognition of our own inaction. While death, breakups, and moving are known as life’s most stressful events, watching someone else suffer can be even more agonizing. Their pain, delusion, and inevitable self-destruction mirror our own struggles, leaving us powerless, which amplifies our pain.
This pain sits heavy in our chest, a signal something is deeply wrong, so we work to dislodge it, to shake it off by thrashing and acting out.
Pain, both physical and emotional, may start as centripetal (focussing down to a central point) but becomes centrifugal (spreading out) from a broken heart or cut to sweating and shaking to involving others. Pain is shared.
(partially from Henry Bergson, William James)