Imagine that you have arrived at the emergency room after a horrific car crash. The doctor in charge offers you two pills. One will relieve the inflammation of whiplash. The other will reduce the psychological trauma, muting the nightmarish flashback to a manageable memory. Would you take one? Would you take both? Is there any difference?

A very interesting column from Ellen Goodman. As much as we don't like it, I think we're defined by the bad things that happen to us more than the good; we use words like "character-building" because we can't think of other ways to explain the age-old "why me, God" guestion, and most of us -- in retrospect -- probably wouldn't want painful experiences taken away. They make us richer, deeper, more empathetic and more whole. If I could stand it, I probably wouldn't take the pill.

But how many people live through way worse things than I could even imagine, and could be helped by NOT having to relive them over and over? How many lives could be made better if the pills were taken? Not only the lives of the victims, but the victims' families -- how many veterans' children would grow up with fathers not terrorized by the shadow of war, to use Goodman's example? Oy. This is making my head hurt.