Toothache

To say we find joy and gratification in the pain of a toothache might sound odd at first (at least to me), but contains complete truth. A toothache gives us the power to call attention. Though we might moan in pain at first, any other pain in a pretty desperate call for attention. We don't moan simply because it hurts, we moan because we want people to attend to us. After a while though we begin to become a burden to others. Though we didn't discuss it in class, I think that this burden can be related to Kafka's The Metamorphosis.  Each family member attended to Gregor at first, but after a while they saw him as a burden and not with the unconditional love of a family member. Though Gregor didn't moan out in pain, I think there is a slight connection there.
Dostoyevsky questioned whether a man of perception could respect himself at all. In all honesty, I think that someone with complete clarity cannot respect himself at all. The level of intellect and clarity that he has would allow him/her to see the core of every person. This core is filled with violence. I'm not being completely negative about human nature, but through what we learn from Darwin we need to favor ourselves over others in order to survive. Du to this basic necessity to put ourselves over others, the core of any human's being is essentially violent.