Learning to Reject the Novocaine

He injected the needle into the lower, right side of my gums.  Instantly I could feel the intended effect already beginning to take place.  But I fought it.  I fought it so hard.  To me there is nothing worse than being numb.  Even if not being numb means feeling pain.  I'll take pain over numbness any day.  When he pulled the needle out I could feel the right side of my face start to tingle.  A tingle so terrifying to me because it was slowly taking away my ability to feel and ultimately my ability to control a part of myself.  Slowly, but still too fast.  The moment of complete numbness came swiftly and whisked away the control I once had over the right side of my face.

Novocaine.  What a terrible substance.  Many like it during dentist visits because it blocks one's ability to feel pain, thus making the experience a less miserable one.  However, that is exactly why I hate it.  Taking away my ability to feel pain takes away a portion of my control.  Feeling that pain helps keep me humble and aware of what is going in my own mouth.  It helps me understand and judge what I am capable of.  It forces me to stay mentally strong and learn to deal with pain in instances that I cannot inject myself with novocaine. 

As I sat in the dentist chair yesterday, beyond irritated that half of my face was numb, I had nothing else to do but think.  I couldn't help but let my mind wander to the fresh and prevalent disaster that occured in Boston.  I reflected on the tragedy and people's reactions to it and as I did so I couldn't help but notice a connection between my feelings toward the Boston Marathon bombing and my hatred toward novocaine. 

While under the influence of novocaine, one can only feel in the injected area under the most immense pressure.  All other levels of pressure go undetected and ignored.  As a society I feel as if we are all sitting in one big dentist's chair allowing our systems to be penetrated with novocaine. People are suffering to some degree all around us every day.  Right in front of us.  But we don't see it.  We just ignore it.  We have been force fed novocaine through the media, poloticians and many other facets of society for so long that the majority of us are desensitized.  Our gift and ability to feel has slowly been warn down so that all that's left, if anything, is a slight tingly feeling.  Pathetic.  Only under the most immense pressures of the world, such as a national disaster, are we able to feel anything again.  Only when a bomb goes off at a national event that effects hundreds, do we seem to remember that we are capable of feeling.  And even then it never seems to last long.  A few days later and everyone is back to what has become normal.  Slightly tingly. 

Why is it that we are all so quick to take the novocaine of society?  Why do we accept the desensitization that is happening to every one of us every minute of every day?  We have been given the ability to feel, physically and emotionally, but we spend a good portion of our time and energy trying to dull those abilities.  Why?  We want to avoid pain, so we dull it.  We ignore it.  And we continue to do so for every little injury that we might sustain until we are struck by something so large we can no longer ignore it.    Pain reminds us that we are in control.  It helps us learn and grow and endure.  It helps us become stronger.  While ignoring it only makes us weaker. 

My thoughts and prayers go out to those who are suffering as a result of the Boston bombing.  But my thoughts and prayers also go out to every single one of us every single day in hopes that someday we will learn to say no to novocaine.  In hopes that we can learn to deal with pain instead of avoid it or ignore it.  In hopes that we can learn from pain instead of be surprised when it gets out of control.  And if we can learn than maybe, just maybe, we can slowly eliminate the amount of disasters that occur in our world.  If we can deal with pain, if we can learn from it and grow from it then we will be making ourselves physically and mentally stronger, making society physically and mentally stronger and better equipping ourselves to deal with such disasters as the tragedy that occurred in Boston just two days ago.