What hurts the most?

I´ve read an article where I learned that a person had developed a scale of pain for bites and stings and, in order to do it properly, he let different insects bit and sting his flesh before categorizing the level of pain felt afterwards.

What would be the use of such scale I can´t tell, maybe getting to know that a wasp bite was categorized as 2 meaning that it is painful, but not excruciating (that would be a 4), would have a soothing effect. However, if a tarantula hawk crosses your way, and that encounters works out really bad for you, meaning that you were bitten at the end, and boy, that hurts as hell, knowing that this is a top 4 type of bite would help you somehow?


Anyway, the article goes on to present the story of another man who was accidentaly bitten by a black widow spider. The bite wasn´t that bad, but the symptons after the venon started to spread were something else, pure agony, the worst pain he have ever felt (LINK).

Black widow spider

Scales of pains, categorizations of agonies. Interesting subject. I would tend to think pain is highly subjective. Something that would be very painful for me couldn´t be that awful for you. It seems thare´s a gender component as well. I´ve heard/read once that women are more resistant to pain then men, but I also read/heard that is the other way around, so, who knows, it´s a touchy subject.

I always had problems with categories in general. I don´t like the idea of putting things into specific compartments, adding values, and  attributing grades. When thinking about pain is even worse; every time I experienced some level of it, I hated it.  I don´t think it ever crossed my mind any attempt to categorize how much pain I was feeling. I just wanted to take something that could make it go away.
That´s my way of dealing with pain, others think it differently. Scientists, doctors, nurses, for scientific reasons I guess. So when I was asked to grade the level of pain after a surgery, I took the question as a valid and scientific one, even though I wanted to use very unappropriate words to describe what I was feeling, and that is also something interesting; why do we want to curse when we feel pain?
All of that made me think about pains and the different types we can experience through life. What would hurt the most? The more physical ones that reflect injuries in parts of our body, or those we usually associate with psychological agonies, such as the pain we experience after a breakup?

I wish I knew. I have the impression that although  the level of pain experienced can be highly subjective, there´s nothing like pain to attach us to the present. It´s like an anchor, forcing us to live the actual moment. There isn´t much space left  for remembering the past or thinking about the future. It´s just us, the agony and the god damned endless present.

I love this version of King of Pain by Alanis.
Have a good day.