This is what an intense migraine attack feels like (Illustration: MC)
Migraine remains the only mistress who has pursued me with undiminished enthusiasm for over three decades. Like all mistresses, she needs no invitation. She just shows up and plants herself firmly inside my head. She arrived early yesterday morning and plans to spend the weekend with me.
Over the years I have run out of ways to describe migraine headaches in terms other than pain. Calling them a mistress was among the last metaphors I had left. I am using it up today. Like any great mistress, migraine has only rights and no responsibilities or social graces. Migraine neither needs explanation for its arrival nor permission to enter. She is proprietorial and has a great sense of entitlement. And she does not leave because you want her to but she does and when she does.
That said, I am beginning to think that migraine has extraterrestrial origin. It is not an earthly ailment. I am not even sure if it is an ailment. The paralyzing pain that results from its arrival seems more like the human brain’s way of coping with it rather than something intentional on migraine’s part. Think of migraine as some sort of gravitational waves emanating from a distant galaxy and randomly passing through our planetary system and millions of human heads like mine. If this sounds like an unstable mind talking, bear in mind that I am bobbing up and down in gravitational waves. At least I am offering a creative explanation for what is truly debilitating pain.
There is enough evidence to suggest that my migraines usually begin around 3 in the morning. That may help me determine whether that is the time when these waves are passing through our neighborhood. I could have checked with Albert Einstein who predicted gravitational waves but it’s a bit late for that.
After over three decades of suffering, I can tell you that there is absolutely no cure for migraines. Painkillers work less and less over the years. It helps to remember that migraines have to be utterly vanquished. Do not be content with minimizing the pain because migraines are capable of exploding into full-blown attacks even from a little remnant. So they have to be completely obliterated.
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In this speculative condition, the only other subject I am fit to talk about today is the performance of the Facebook stock on day one. Hyper media types as well as day traders seem to have gone into overdrive wondering whether FB is overrated. A couple of points about that.
First, it was the first day of trading and for that it has done reasonably well just holding its ground, even if it meant the reports that it was artificially propped up by underwriters. The whole system of the stock markets worldwide survives on someone artificially propping it up for their own interest. So no surprise there.
From its base price of $38, it rose to a peak of $43 and then eventually settled at $38.23 at closing. Some are already declaring FB as a flop. My gut tells me that, although one may feel deceived by the hype, FB will probably trade well over an extended period.This is from someone who has never invested in stocks.
Another point to remember is that FB will be tied to a whole vast ecology of businesses because it is a platform for various things. What Mark Zuckerberg is basically selling is FB’s 900 million plus members and their ability to buy many things many times but not when stock brokers want them to. As the third most populous entity behind China and India, the Republic of Facebook ought to have some intrinsic economic value. Let’s find out if it is true and how much. It could not have been decided in the first 30 seconds of trading as some frenzied day traders and media pundits would have liked.
