'I know what evil is. Once or twice I have wrestled with it, and for a time felt its chilling touch on my life; so I speak with knowledge when I say that evil is of no consequence, except as a sort of mental gymnastic. For the very reason that I have come in contact with it, I am more truly an optimist. I can say with conviction that the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings. It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It lets us into the soul of things and teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life. The world is sown with good; but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good.' : Helen Keller
I'm at the pending of the shift.
I'm in the state of mind where I know the injustice is outweighed by the empowerment of the overcoming of it. I am even more empowered in the knowledge that suffering is an essential element to relating to each other and the world around us.
A world without suffering. This incites an immediate bias of 'better', for the opposite of suffering surely ought to be?
A world where everything we experienced evoked no anguishing reflection. A world where all our interactions were civil and right, where nothing was challenged.
We forget that only through suffering can we empathize. And only through empathy does our consciousness reach the ability it has. This is the element that seperates us from other animals. Unlike others, I don't believe we are more 'intelligent' than other animals, and I certainly don't think this heirarchy we place ourselves in is necessary or benefitial. However our consciousness, our empathy, our ability to relate things, to comprehend, has led us to such evolutionary advances we manipulate the world we live in (perhaps to the downfall of ourselves in the end).
Suffering is an ESSENTIAL element in our understanding of ourselves and the way we relate to the world. A world without suffering would mean a world with limtted empathy. A world of limitted appreciation and a banausic value. It would be like a constant episode of Stepford Wives! No actually... that would more likely create an ample existence of suffering...
So here we live. We protest at affliction and defy the good in the horror of the bad. 'Why', that ever present question, hovering like a storm cloud and as demanding as the dark. 'Unfairness'. The sly fire that burns and yet regenerates. Does it have to be?
We are addicted to the good, because we are empathetic beings and we value the condition that speaks best of us. However the very thing we value cannot be attained without suffering, because we cannot wholly fulfill its true form if we have lived in shallow waters. What we value is therefore also what we loath! The deeper the dive the more the danger, but ever the more surface gained.
So to suffering I feel the need to honour, for I know the plunge down makes the upward peak steeper.
xxx
I'm at the pending of the shift.
I'm in the state of mind where I know the injustice is outweighed by the empowerment of the overcoming of it. I am even more empowered in the knowledge that suffering is an essential element to relating to each other and the world around us.
A world without suffering. This incites an immediate bias of 'better', for the opposite of suffering surely ought to be?
A world where everything we experienced evoked no anguishing reflection. A world where all our interactions were civil and right, where nothing was challenged.
We forget that only through suffering can we empathize. And only through empathy does our consciousness reach the ability it has. This is the element that seperates us from other animals. Unlike others, I don't believe we are more 'intelligent' than other animals, and I certainly don't think this heirarchy we place ourselves in is necessary or benefitial. However our consciousness, our empathy, our ability to relate things, to comprehend, has led us to such evolutionary advances we manipulate the world we live in (perhaps to the downfall of ourselves in the end).
Suffering is an ESSENTIAL element in our understanding of ourselves and the way we relate to the world. A world without suffering would mean a world with limtted empathy. A world of limitted appreciation and a banausic value. It would be like a constant episode of Stepford Wives! No actually... that would more likely create an ample existence of suffering...
So here we live. We protest at affliction and defy the good in the horror of the bad. 'Why', that ever present question, hovering like a storm cloud and as demanding as the dark. 'Unfairness'. The sly fire that burns and yet regenerates. Does it have to be?
We are addicted to the good, because we are empathetic beings and we value the condition that speaks best of us. However the very thing we value cannot be attained without suffering, because we cannot wholly fulfill its true form if we have lived in shallow waters. What we value is therefore also what we loath! The deeper the dive the more the danger, but ever the more surface gained.
So to suffering I feel the need to honour, for I know the plunge down makes the upward peak steeper.
xxx
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Burn on, Phoenix.
When I say 'empathy' I mean being able to relate to others, even platonically; as in you pass someone and recognise they are happy because they are smiling; clinically understand someone is feeling upset because their mum has died etc. I don't necessarily mean to go out of our way to feel on the same level as someone, though this is obviously the ideal scale of empathy. Our relation to others is linked by the external-to-internal correlation - and one of these correlations is suffering. We all feel it on some level, at one stage or another, and thus this links our human condition.
It is true that people who have endured suffering can turn bitter and perpetuate the very opposite though. I suppose it can go either way - but, ultimately that is down to choice. It takes strength and a degree of faith to want to connect in the knowledge that we are all essential suffering creatures - it is easier to lock ourselves away in our bitterness and alienate our mutually human experience from others. Particularly in england, I notice there is a sort of facade where it is seen as 'aware and intelligent' to act this way. I disagree. It tskes more strength of character to rise above this.
In my experience, people who have limitted empathy normally do because they have either been pruned to believe this is a superior way to act; they have grown angry/bitter from hurt, leading them to believe the world owes them something; or, they have had a superficial life where security and 'things' have enveloped their lives creating a barrier between human experience. 9 times out of 10 I see this last one. Capitalism and consumerism teaches us to be out for ourselves and compete with the other - what is the saying over here? Dog eating dogs?
This state is so very sad. It is souless almost. One of my favourite Oscar Wilde quotes
'To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.'
xxx