Thanks to whoever (can no longer figure out who) pointed me to this discussion of remedies for hot pepper burning. Years ago, I too made the mistake of cleaning chili peppers barehanded; luckily it was before I wore contact lenses. I’m not saying this would work for burning hands, but Andrew Weil, in The Marriage of the Sun and Moon (1980), a collection of essays pondering altered states of consciousness, wrote about the hot pepper high that Westerners have difficulty with hot food because we try and fight and quell the burning sensations. Instead, you can get exhilarated by going with the flow, in essence surfing the crest of the wave of capsicum heat.