Tomorrow I go to visit a friend who has suffered far more than I can imagine and still emerges on the other side with more humor and heart than I could ever sustain during such an ordeal. The contrast is particularly striking for me, since I know the majority of people take what we have for granted without true appreciation of how lucky we really are. Myself included.
We all know that every individual has certain born capacities and traits; some have those traits tempered and forged into iron by life. While no one can truly understand exactly what someone is going through, the ability to face it marks the difference between those who bend to a new reality, or break and give in to despair. The ones who bend often stand not without fear, but stand despite the fear, which is a quality not everyone has to confront and conquer in life.
I know what it is to crumble under pressure and fear. I know how agonizing every hour, minute, and second can seem, and how estranged you can be from the regular world running 9-5. What it is like to have your dignity taken away and realize how powerless you are sometimes. To doubt that you may not make it back to the "real world" since everything you believed in life has just been knocked out from under your feet.
That's when your true self takes over, vowing to fight or knowing that this is surrender, yet most of all knowing that these two impulses are not mutually exclusive if you've been around the block a time or two. Can you still be powerless in many ways? Yes. Can you still be struggling with the same issues and know damn well that this will be the case many times in the future? Absolutely.
Can you temporarily surrender, but know you will have the strength to get up again? A thousand times yes.
Knowing that the fear, pain, difficulties, emptiness, weaknesses, and all of your other frailties will exist and know that you bend. Not break, although nothing is 100% certain, but you've fought before, so at least it's something you know you've won before. My friend seems to know this (again, I can't claim to know another person's thoughts), and it's a hard-earned lesson but definitely gives you hope, knowing that you've gone through pain before and there will be another, more positive day coming. No matter how long it takes to arrive.
We all know that every individual has certain born capacities and traits; some have those traits tempered and forged into iron by life. While no one can truly understand exactly what someone is going through, the ability to face it marks the difference between those who bend to a new reality, or break and give in to despair. The ones who bend often stand not without fear, but stand despite the fear, which is a quality not everyone has to confront and conquer in life.
I know what it is to crumble under pressure and fear. I know how agonizing every hour, minute, and second can seem, and how estranged you can be from the regular world running 9-5. What it is like to have your dignity taken away and realize how powerless you are sometimes. To doubt that you may not make it back to the "real world" since everything you believed in life has just been knocked out from under your feet.
That's when your true self takes over, vowing to fight or knowing that this is surrender, yet most of all knowing that these two impulses are not mutually exclusive if you've been around the block a time or two. Can you still be powerless in many ways? Yes. Can you still be struggling with the same issues and know damn well that this will be the case many times in the future? Absolutely.
Can you temporarily surrender, but know you will have the strength to get up again? A thousand times yes.
Knowing that the fear, pain, difficulties, emptiness, weaknesses, and all of your other frailties will exist and know that you bend. Not break, although nothing is 100% certain, but you've fought before, so at least it's something you know you've won before. My friend seems to know this (again, I can't claim to know another person's thoughts), and it's a hard-earned lesson but definitely gives you hope, knowing that you've gone through pain before and there will be another, more positive day coming. No matter how long it takes to arrive.
posted by AnonymousX at 8:34 PM
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