These are a part of life. Not just my life, of course. But what I'm thinking of is bodily irritants -- small imperfections or injuries on the surface of the body that aren't large enough to be worrisome, yet aren't small enough to ignore.
My latest acquisition is a burn on my RH thumb, received for absent-mindedly testing the toasted sandwich maker to see if it was still on. It was. The burn is small, quite hard, and perfectly circular. It's a reminder of the gap between what I would like my body to do and what it actually will do.
That's because the thumb pulp that's burned comes directly into contact with the pen while writing. When I'm not writing, I don't even remember that I have a burn. Yet when I pick up a pen, it's suddenly annoying. The small circular burn temporarily becomes the centre of my world.
My consciousness of the burn, and the necessity of performing an action (such as handwriting) that counteracts my body's present wishes, shows the difference between humans' and animals' experience of bodily irritation.
Most non-human animals see discomfort as something to be avoided, even if that means modifying otherwise rewarding behaviour. If the original behaviour is retained despite the irritation, then the reward obtained must be substantial. (An example of this would be a rat knowingly receiving an electric shock by pressing a live food-release lever.)
Yet humans seem to have a different attitude to their minor injuries and abrasions. Instead of becoming something to ignore, they become something to obsess over. Our centre of consciousness is temporarily relocated to become engulfed by the burn, cut or bruise.
I'm going somewhere with this, but I can't figure out where. More thinking needed.
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