1. How Can I Numb the Pain?By Danea TwaHumanities 30-1 – Mr. Kabachia3/22/2010<br />How Can I Numb the Pain?<br />The human race has reached a point of needing to feel comfortable and in control. When something in an individual’s life goes wrong or begins to fall apart it makes them feel uncertain. The definition or uncertain in the dictionary is: lacking clear knowledge or a definite opinion; likely to change, and therefore not reliable or stable; lacking self-assurance or confidence. For many people uncertainty is a very daunting thing because it means that things might not work out the way they had planned or the way they thought it would. Uncertainty can make people feel like they don’t know what to do. Things seem to be spiraling out of control, but in order to restore their certainty they may have to face the issue and become uncomfortable. For this reason, many people avoid whatever has taken their honor and certainty, rather than try to restore it. The feeling of being uncomfortable in struggling through dealing with unpredicted events in life prevents many from trying to fix it, myself included. I am a very organized, perfectionist individual. Everything I do in a day has been thought out before hand; everything planned and scheduled in order to fit numerous things into a short period of time. I am a person who thrives by feeling in control of my life and needs to know all the answers. Due to these personality traits, when a calamitous event takes place in my life that I have not planned it can be hard for me to deal with it. There have been times in my life when something happened that I knew would change things in a big way and, like many others, I chose to ignore the situation, hoping it would simply work itself out. <br />I can recall the day that my mother informed me that we would be moving away from Coronation to a place called Blackfalds. I was in shock. Coronation was all I had ever known. For me, moving was a terribly frightening thing because I was no longer certain of anything. There were a large number of plans and ambitions I had for myself that now would have to change. I began to feel as if my life was steaming down the track at 120 km/h and there was nothing I could do but sit on the crossing gate watching it rush by. I remember crying so many nights and not being able to stop what I knew was coming. I felt so uncertain about my future and I had so many questions that I didn’t know would ever be answered. Would I like it there? Would I make new friends? Would I see my old friends? How could I ever leave my home behind? I had a pit in my stomach all the time and felt so betrayed by my parents for doing this to me. The feelings of being lost and out of control were overwhelming. <br />I decided to find a way to get away from the situation I was in. Like Jack Hawthorne in Redemption, I found my escape through music. I found when listening to the lyrics of songs I could forget about moving and feel whatever emotion the song was intended to invoke in me, instead of my usual feelings of hurt and anger. Hearing the words that had been so melodically pieced together by others made me feel safe; like the world had been set right again and I didn’t have to be afraid of anything to come. The stories told in those songs had a way of working out in the end and it made me not worry as much about my own story that was being written.<br />Escaping my uncertainty of Blackfalds was my escape to numb the pain until I was forced to deal with it. For a very long time after the move I continued to just let the situation pass by me without facing the struggle to move on with my life. I knew in order to restore my honor and my certainty about life and where I was going I was going to have to become uncomfortable. As I began to finally search for answers to my questions and explore my new life 2 hours away from what I called home, I slowly began to find myself again and get back to the way I was. In doing this I also learned why it is that people choose to ignore difficult events in life. It can be so uncomfortable and frightening to deal with things. People try to numb their pain with material things that are familiar to them rather than facing their uncertainty. I learned that it is a real struggle to restore a person’s honor and certainty after they have experienced something that made them afraid or hurt. Although I still often turn to music when I am uncertain or hurt to try to escape, I know that it will not fix the situation only postpone the struggle to fix things that I must endure in the end. It can be much easier to just sit and watch your life rush by without you on board or block out the reality with something like music, but by doing those things, you lose your honor by not standing and facing the truth of the situation and you can never be certain of anything that you do not explore to find the answers. <br />