Pain

Passage: In war, when shells fly past our bodies at high speeds, we sense clearly that no level of intelligence, virtue, or fortitude is strong enough to deflect them, not even by a hair. To the extent this threat increases, doubt concerning the validity of our values forces itself upon us. The mind tends toward a catastrophic interpretation of things wherever it sees everything called into question. (pp. 5-6)

Otto Dix




Pain makes us more aware of how human we are. No matter how successful we may be, no matter how generous, or how bad, pain reminds us that at any instant we may lose the one thing that we value the most, our lives. Being in danger, such as war makes us even aware of this situation. Adrenaline courses through your body as you concentrate on just making it out alive. Your heart beats faster, sweat breaks out on your brow, and you become even more aware of you surroundings. The most common reason that people seek out plastic surgery is so that they can appear younger and more rejuventaed, staving off, well at least in their minds the effects of aging. Old Age and death are ideas which scare most people, because they cannot be put off, they are inevitable. As we go through our daily lives we cringe at stories of car accidents, murders etc. because it reminds us of our own mortality. In this passage it encapsulate just this idea. War is something that we are confronted with, and cannot cringe away from. When "the shells fly past our bodies" we are confronted there and then of how little it takes for us to die. The bullet will not miss us on account of our virtue, or how rich we are, nothing will stop it from coming. How are we supposed to exist if at any minute, any day, any hour we can die. Such things as these makes us call into question our own existence, because if at any moment we can lose our lives then what is the point in living?

This drawing by Otto Dix encapsulates these thoughts precisely, because in it there is an air of desperation that he capture in this. Everything has a dark and somber mood as we see how human life has been so thus reduced to rotting corpses and skeletons stuck in the mud. Here is this place that is so devoid of any stirring of life, there is no hopeful light in the horizon, but neutral and dark tones and colors. Dix shows how life can be there one moment and then gone the next, just like a landscape that constantly changes, and changes.