Summary
How can you love suffering?
A couple of weeks ago – back in 2024 – the thought occurred to me that I love my suffering. As strange as it may sound, I am grateful that I have had great pains in my life. I feel like I have grown bigger, stronger from them.
I thought I could take a look at the difficult times I think of, because some of them live quite strongly in me, and I suspect they will live forever. But in recent years, I have thought about two things more than once: similarity and injustice.
Similarity
One thing is that my pain is very similar, or even exactly the same, as what other people experience. I also only get things like death, like breakups, like disappointment. Most likely everyone has this.
For years, an idea has been swirling in my head that could be for example the title of an autobiographical book: The story is the same, life is different. By this I mean that we humans live the same stories over and over again: yours dies, mine cheats. What distinguishes stories that have been told a million times is life. Your life and my life. Your story, heard a thousand times, will be unique because you live it. Mine is because I am the main character.
It is a shame to detail pain in this way, because everyone knows the nature of pain. The pain that stretches you, that I cannot get rid of, that tells me that even if I die, even if I go crazy, I would rather do almost anything than be with you… You sweet torment!
Injustice
My other thought, which is why I refrain from listing, is that I do not want to be unfair with any of my pains. Why would one be less than the other? Which one would offend me if I left it off the list? What is the greater pain? Losing an unborn fetus, or experiencing being abandoned by his or her mother. The agony of a recent breakup, or the soul-crushing sound of pieces of earth pounding on my grandfather’s coffin? Which will haunt you more throughout your life? When you have to write to the woman you love, “God be with you, my beauty!”, or when you have to crush her in court because the game is played on the field of “me or her”?
So, I won’t list my pains. (At least one of my friends has to shout hallelujah, no list is being made!)
Imagine yours, please! Mine are just like that…
The dance routine
This journey of mine is also born and is taking shape among such pain. But I greeted this torment as an acquaintance when it kicked the door in on me. We know each other, we have the usual dance routine.
It hurts, it teaches, it traumatizes me, it lifts me up, it breaks, it shakes, it passes very slowly, it doesn’t let me sleep, it energizes. It hurts, it teaches, it traumatizes me…
That’s why I’ll be stronger from them. They train as if I were burning in a fire. That’s why I’m grateful for them. I’m grateful for this one as I go. This is the first time I’ve been in it, but I’m already thanking her for hugging me.
Finally, synchronicity again
Synchronicity is emerging from my environment again. I have been thinking about this writing for days, and yesterday and today these came to me from two sources that are not very common for me. Let this post end with two quotes that are not my own.
Yesterday’s surprise
Everyone admires a strong person. They constantly hear how good it is that they are so strong, that they can endure so much, that they do not collapse under the weight of life. And the strong smile quietly, sometimes they shrug their shoulders and move on. Because being strong is painful. Strength has always been preceded by weakness, when the world has turned on its four corners, when it felt like there was no more. When the heart skips a thousand and one beats, when it hurts so much that there are no tears and no comfort. The strong are not unshakable because they were born that way. No way. The strong man has been through hell, experienced the greatest pain of his life, given up on a thousand hopes, and knows that no matter how bad, no matter how difficult, life goes on. So, day after day, he picks up the broken pieces of his life, puts them back together, and moves on. Because he knows that somewhere there is always a path that is his, that he may find himself again while walking on.
Source: Todorovits Rea
Today’s gift
My personal favorite is the saying attributed to Soichiro Honda, which says that the beauty of life depends on how many times you have been deeply stirred. It is not a cloudless, carefree life that makes us happy, but the struggles through which we find our identity and peace of mind.
Source: Self-Identified Leadership Workshop Newsletter, 01-09-2024
If I may ask, laugh a little now: Hysterical Laughter Breaks Out on the NYC Subway