Back pain.

Last weekend, I schlepped. Schlepped my Uncle Slappy and Aunt Sylvie, my wife and myself down to the wilds of South Jersey to break the Yom Kippur fast. This week, it's caught up with me in the form of excruciating back pain.

The pain is so sharp, so intense that I can't breathe deep. I went for a half-hour run in the park (which, for whatever reason doesn't aggravate matters) and I could barely double-over and sip from a water fountain. A sneeze is like a gun shot.

There's nothing like back pain. And there's nothing like back pain to put the world in perspective.

The world when your back is attacking you is a horrible, immobilizing place. The simplest act, typing this blog, becomes an act of fortitude. Or even five-itude.

And then, as suddenly as it strikes you, the back pain, if past is prologue, will disappear. It disappears and you are freed. Free to carry milk home from the grocery store. Free to adjust the dials on the radio. Free to breathe deep and cough without hesitation.

It's good to remember what life is like when you have back pain. Because it shows you how good life is when you don't have it. It's a good lesson for people in advertising.

There is so much that is so difficult, so painful about our business. There are times when you feel like giving up. Like you haven't a friend in the world, or at least the agency.

But you hang in there.

Breathe deep.

You think of the joke about the guy who's banging his head repeatedly against a brick wall.

Why?

Because it feels so good when he stops.