The Next Big Idea Daily What Pain Can Teach Us
Mar 11, 2026
Darcy Steinke, acclaimed writer on the body and illness, reflects on pain as revelation, creativity, and meaning. Anousheh Hossain, journalist and author on healthcare disparities, exposes sexism and racism in medical treatment and urges patients to own their care. They converse on pain’s role in identity, ritual, storytelling, and systemic injustice.
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Pain As A Doorway To Meaning
- Pain can be a doorway to meaning rather than only a problem to eliminate.
- Darcy Steinke argues chronic pain exposed hidden parts of self and inspired artistic and communal expression, citing Frida Kahlo and her own back pain experience.
Author's Personal Reckoning With Chronic Back Pain
- Darcy Steinke used her worst months of back pain to consider whether she had been 'worthy of her suffering.'
- She describes standing at her kitchen counter and later transforming struggle into art and communion with others.
Historical Medicine Embraced Mystery
- Early medical books mixed physiology with spirit, myth, and wonder in ways modern texts do not.
- Steinke found 14th–17th century works (e.g., William Harvey) that discuss the heart alongside God, folk tales, and the fantastic.
