Pain is like some imposition one has to deal with, though it comes from your own system -- your self-protective system. You get your mind off of it and it's not an issue. But it returns -- like a musical theme. It forces you to take structure seriously. It's annoying -- like a loud egomaniac at a party. Consciousness avoids it at every turn, yet it is an element of the very substance of consciousness. Pain doesn't allow room for delusion the way everything else in life does -- this is it's one redeeming quality. In the face of pain one longs for all things in existence to be temporary.