The Quantum of Suffering - April 25 2026

 

The Quantum of Suffering 

April 25 2026

We can measure the distance to the sun,

the grains of sand

in the lines we draw,

the blink of time it takes

a loving touch

to travel to the brain.

Even how many grams it weighs.

So the universe can be quantified;

a fixed sum

of matter and energy

waved into being when time began.

But how to account for the ineffable?

The universe of sensation 

confined

within the fortress of our skulls,

and contained

in the 3 lbs of squishy stuff

that makes us who we are?

You needn’t be a heretic

screaming in pain

as he’s burned alive.

Because we all hurt, grieve, endure;

the quantum of suffering

each of us bears

we keep to ourselves,

nursing 

our private agonies

as we pass blithely through the world;

but multiplied

by 8 billion souls.

Just imagine the cacophony 

if it was turned into noise.

Or the one great love

that courses through the brain

like a morphine drip

cut with speed,

when even the most daily mundane

seems lit by a thousand watts.

Like when you fall in love

for the first and only time

  . . . because isn’t it always for life?

When the universe contracts

until just the two of you are left,

and the air in between

fills with a kind of heat

no physics can measure

or even name.

When the brain stills weighs the same

and the planets orbit like clockwork

but everything’s changed.

It’s as if energy

could be created and destroyed,

as if matter

wasn’t the point.

As if a parallel universe

exists in our heads

where only magic numbers count,

and infinity

divided by zero

makes perfect sense.

The idea of the “quantified life” has gained a certain following:  fastidiously counting calories, steps, and hours of sleep. Even nocturnal erections! And even for a rational materialist like me — who is hardly that obsessive — it still seems self-evident that everything is measurable.

Yet how to quantify all the pain, ecstasy, and everything in between roiling within each of us? Even accounting for the small amount of energy it takes to fuel our brains (at rest, the equivalent of a 20 watt bulb!), a great deal seems to be missing. Newton’s 2nd law (from which the principle of the conservation of energy is derived) never accounted for this. 

Now imagine 8 billion souls, all of whom contain multitudes within them. All this turmoil, agony, and ecstasy that seems beyond the reach of physics. An entire virtual universe within each of us, yet walking down a crowded street and looking around, you’d never know.

The tone of the title is at adds with how the poem ends. But I kept it in order to honour the idea that inspired this. Perhaps it says something about me that it wasn’t the ineffable power of love, but the horrible suffering we inflict on each other that first came to mind. Suffering that often dehumanizes the other, occurs at a distance, and leaves the perpetrators largely untouched.