I was on the road today when Jackson Browne's 1973 song "Doctor, My Eyes" came on the radio. I'd never listened closely to the lyrics. Musically, it's this fast, upbeat shuffle. But the poem is a song of desperation... about how we exile unwanted feelings, until a day comes that we can't feel anything at all.

I was in tears myself by the end. Because I've been feeling that numbness creeping up for quite a while. And he managed to touch it: that awful "prize" for learning how not to cry.

@impermanen_ decades ago there was an article (in "Atlantic Monthly"?) titled "Doctor My Eyes" . It described dozens of medically inexplicable cases of blindness among Hmong people who had resettled in California after fleeing their home country. The conclusion was that these Hmong had witnessed and suffered such unspeakable trauma that they were rendered unable to see. The story haunts me still. At the time I immediately recognized the connection with Browne's lyrics.