I never thought of art this way (or thought of art at all) before this. The article makes an interesting statement, saying that pain can provoke creativity.
I chose quotes #1 and #2
1) The only way people can really describe pain is to objectify it.
Sarah Boxer brings up a book by Elaine Scarry. She says that people never truly describe pain, but they only describe things or objects that can cause the pain. When I thought about this, it is actually very true. We can never describe our pain; we can only use examples of other things to explain our pain to others as best we can. The other day, I stepped on a lego (thanks, little brothers). The pain would described as a “sharp pain”, or like I had been pricked by little needles. I never thought of it at that moment (or any other time I got hurt), but I wasn’t able to really describe the pain, but only relate it to things that CAUSE pain. This challenges us as creators. The first person to describe pain must have had a difficult time finding exact words for it. What if we experience a pain one day that we can relate to no other experience? How will we describe it then?
2) When people forge tools or build things, they are often trying to alleviate discomfort. But first they must define the discomfort.
We’ve already discussed describing a pain/discomfort. But how do we relieve these discomforts? Boxer discusses the tools people use to ease pains. As creators, most of the things we make are made to relieve pain, to ease discomfort, or to make life easier. She uses the example of a chair. We use chairs to help us counter the discomfort of having our body weight for extended periods of time. Many things have been created to ease discomforts, and still we are in the process of developing more. Some are very simple things that many take for granted today. Shoes are an example. Somebody a long time ago was sick of walking on bare feet and getting cuts from rocks and rough ground, so they developed shoes. Whether the first shoes were just a piece of wood or maybe soft cloth, they sought out to ease the discomfort of bare foot walking. Since then, many developments were made and the result was the comfortable sneakers or shoes that we wear today. All in all, pain leads to the need to alleviate it, and that need often results in new technology.
Does this mean pain is a good thing?
