{"id":82154,"date":"2015-01-29T17:34:34","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T22:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=82154"},"modified":"2015-01-30T14:00:54","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T19:00:54","slug":"common-colds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/29\/common-colds\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Colds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"cold\"<\/a>

\u201cCoughs and sneezes spread diseases,\u201d a famous British public health campaign.<\/p><\/div>\n

As I wandered through the painkillers aisle, sniffling and throwing decongestants and tinctures into my basket, I thought that one of the annoying things about the common cold is the knowledge that it\u2019s so benign. A harried-looking dad was bending over the babies\u2019 section, staring at a bulb syringe and trying ineffectually to calm the miserable toddler in the red UPPAbaby. The little boy was howling. And why not? What had he done to find himself visited by a raw, red nose, troubled sleep, and a series of aches and pains? So far as he was concerned, this was the end of the world: nothing in this moment could have been worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the truth is, when you feel sick, it\u2019s a small comfort to know you\u2019ll be better within a week and what\u2019s happening to you isn\u2019t, in fact, serious. There\u2019s none of the anxiety of a real medical problem, but then it\u2019s in a different category entirely: it\u2019s the very knowledge of its toothlessness\u2014paired with its unpleasantness\u2014that renders it irritating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What else in the world is like this? I tried on various feelings and memories as I walked home, and then it came to me: Internet meanness. Being trolled by someone on the Internet is one of the few things that feels like a common cold. It happens, it\u2019s ubiquitous, you know that you can\u2019t give into it\u2014and it\u2019s none the more pleasant for that. Those things which are all about one\u2019s toughness\u2014that really only differ in how you stand up to them\u2014are a particular sort of exhausting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like a cold, there\u2019s no \u201cgood\u201d trolling\u2014only degrees of badness, and various capacities to cope and palliate. You can strengthen your immunities, as it were, but putting yourself into the world means exposure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are, of course, degrees of awfulness\u2014check out Lindy West<\/a>\u2019s recent turn on This American Life<\/em> to hear an extreme recent example\u2014and it\u2019s an inexact and stupid comparison. It becomes very tempting to say something really hackneyed: that both are easier to bear when you hold your head up. But I\u2019d be lying; I ignore these sorts of things to the greatest extent possible, brood when I can\u2019t, and turn off comments. It\u2019s been a while since I cried about such things, and for the first time this week, I read an insult from a stranger and didn\u2019t take it to heart. It only took ten years. And someone calling me \u201ca goblin fart,\u201d of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m belaboring it, but I do think there\u2019s something there. The human body\u2019s a remarkable thing, but after millennia, we still get colds. Maybe we always will. And no one should ever grow inured to cruelty and pain; we are not built for it. Babies haven\u2019t learned much perspective, but that doesn\u2019t mean that, strictly speaking, they\u2019re wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I wandered through the painkillers aisle, sniffling and throwing decongestants and tinctures into my basket, I thought that one of the annoying things about the common cold is the knowledge that it\u2019s so benign. 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