Hurts So Good

Thanks for the incredible feedback on my remarks from the Bar Mitzvah.  Not to humble-brag too much, but I had really good material to work with. 

I honestly don't know how school principals and community leaders do it.  I mean, it's easy to speak about exceptional people.  But what the heck do you say about the village idiot? 

I guess what I'm saying (badly) is that anyone who knows Netanel could have nailed that speaking opportunity.  He's a truly exceptional young man from a truly exceptional family.  People are instinctively drawn to him and want to be part of his life.  Saying nice things to him - and about him  - was effortless.  That speech practically wrote itself!  I was just lucky enough to have been asked.

That said, I'd like to share a deep dark secret that I've often wanted to reveal... but always held back because I couldn't figure out how exactly to express it without sounding, well, a little nuts.

I have no frame of reference to know if others experience anything like this, but I've lived most of my life with a cruel paradox: Two things that I'm actually pretty good at - writing and public speaking - cause me to experience something so close to physical pain that it would probably be measurable if I were to do either in a clinical setting while hooked up to complex, 'House M.D.'-worthy diagnostic machines.

But... and here's the part which may send you mental health professionals running to the DSM-5 (or as I like to call it: 'The Family Album'), the aftermath of both writing and public speaking leaves me with an endorphin rush akin to what elite athletes experience in the wake of a punishing workout.   Or at least that's what I've heard they experience. 

Personally, I've never gotten anything more than smelly clothing and sore muscles from even the most arduous physical activity.  So as far as I'm concerned, that whole athletic-endorphin-rush thing remains entirely anecdotal... up there with urban legends, like the existence of courteous Israeli drivers or teenagers that wash dishes without being threatened.

So yeah... that's my dirty little secret.  Writing and public speaking really, really hurt when I do them.   

But it's a good hurt.