No pain, no gain.

If I had a dollar for every time my mom told me “no pain, no gain”, I wouldn’t need a job. But it’s true. There is no gain without pain.

As Boxer mentioned “The only way people can really describe pain is to objectify it,” objects carry the burden of the pain people get tired of harboring. Pain is the fuel that drove people to build homes, cars, trains, phones, and almost everything many of us have the luxury of owning. Pain is revealed in the absence of the object. Without a boiler, there are no hot showers, without cars, trains and planes the world becomes smaller and without chairs people become more hostile.

Pain made Taylor Swift famous, not Kanye. Just as Boxer stated “When people forge tools or build things, they are often trying to alleviate discomfort. But first they must define the discomfort”, Swift forged her pain caused by her multiple failed relationships into multiple hit songs. By transferring pain into words, she was able to describe and alleviate the suffering she harbored.

Pain is art. Whenever I have emotional pain, I find myself either holding a whisk or a henna cone. Speaking about pain has never been easy for me, but there is something about baking and designing flowers and paisleys that always has a way of calming me down. Maybe it’s the sweet smell of the melted chocolate or the stunning intricacy of my henna that absorbs my pain while I absorb its beauty.