Foreword

Abstract

Expressions and their meanings have a tendency to linger about long after the unique circumstances that bred them have passed. These words are timeless, betraying the prejudices of the past and fossilizing the latter into the present. Truism carries many names––tired, old clichés, prosaic maxims, meaningless platitudes––even the adjectives used to characterize them have themselves become bromides. Still, they would be harmless if they were merely confined to aged textbooks. But no, these trite axioms are rediscovered in everyday speech, imparting a message that conveys the thoughtlessness of the speaker and creates insensitivity in the undiscerning listener. Fatigue is such a term. A cursory review of its synonyms portrays a sense of desperation, helplessness, and hopelessness. A person is said to be weather-beaten, knocked up, or shattered as if fatigue were an effect alone of external forces battering the body. Other nouns reveal the opposite sense, that of an extreme self-driven activity, such as “walked off one’s legs,” footsore, or spent. Fatigue has been associated with sleep (drowsiness, yawning), need for breath (dyspnea, “out of breath”), cessation of work (overwork, worn out), collapse (droop, sink, swoon, faintness, syncope, ready to drop), or near-death (on one’s last legs, done up). In addition to its status as a debilitating condition, fatigue has been used in other contexts, including election campaigns (“voter fatigue”), national economy (“investor fatigue”), and military campaigns (“war fatigue”). Given the wide variety of terms related to fatigue, it is easy to understand why this condition is so misunderstood by many. “Fatigue,” wrote Benjamin Franklin, “is the best pillow.” Did he mean that fatigue is, in a sense, desirable since it guarantees better sleep? Other authors have provided wise counsel on how to overcome fatigue. Thomas Carlyle advised the provision of music to cure fatigue: “One is hardly sensible of fatigue while he marches to music.” Or was he was referring, instead, to the curative elements of marching? Another suggested the use of tea as in Lu Yu’s maxim, “Tea tempers the spirit and harmonizes the mind; dispels lassitude and relieves fatigue, awakens thought and prevents drowsiness.” Flattery? Yes, it, too, was believed to relieve fatigue, according to James Monroe when he wrote, “A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.” And finally, habit, which is one of life’s greatest teachers, second only to failure, has been proposed as a healing tonic. Marcus Tillius Cicero declared that, “Great is the power of habit. It teaches us to bear fatigue and to despise wounds and pain.” It is plainly apparent that we all have much to learn about fatigue, much to understand about its causes, and much to empathize with those who suffer from this medical disorder.