Pain. Rawness. Vulnerability. Moments when the soul is naked, exposed – not to the world but to true feeling. On a school trip to Rajasthan I met a man, Vasu Ji, who said, "Pain and suffering are real. Happiness is a flippant thing." I never understood or agreed with that statement for the longest time. Until, one day it just struck me, like most things that you hold in the back of your mind.
A long time back, I made a distinction between feeling and emotion. I perceived feeling to be real, honest expression while emotions were just labels given to these moments that sometimes made them lose value. When you feel, there is no reason for it, and no matter how hard you try to stop the feeling, you just can't. You can laugh without a cause, cry although you know it is pointless to and love like there's nothing to be lost. I believe, that when you truly feel things, you experience something that you can't define although it's identified by different names – happiness, love, anger, sadness,... pain. I left it at that at the time. Lately, I've been considering that pain is the rawest and most honest of all those feelings.
Although the term pain has always had negative connotations, I think there is beauty in it that stems from its rawness. While happiness and sadness can be feigned, pain is real. From a paper cut, to a thorn prick to the loss of someone loved, pain is like a thumping headache, constantly reminding us of our vulnerability to damage. Perhaps it's the fear of true feeling and of imperfection that makes us live life as a masquerade, with constantly changing disguises of happiness, joy, nonchalance and numbness. But, at the end of the show, the real character must take a bow, and I believe that Pain deserves a standing ovation.
I've heard people tell the world that they're alright when they're clearly not. I've seen them put on a smile that gives them the courage to deal with whatever comes their way, and I've seen them break down and become vulnerable again. The idea of being easily hurt scares people, myself included. The very idea of being defenceless, not knowing from where or when you can be attacked by spears of pain and hurt, is terrifying. The knowledge that other people and other things can have the power to make you feel anything but joy is unnerving. But therein lies the beauty of interconnectivity and relativity. What would light be without the darkness? What would joy be without sadness? What is calm without the storm?
If you don't accept pain and suffering, how will you get to see the wounds heal, watch the scars fade away into your skin; transform from being a part of you to a part of your past? How will you feel the hardness of skin that has become tough after harm, the relief of a mended heart, the song of a raw, bare soul? Is happiness flippant? Maybe, maybe not. But pain is definitely the real deal.
A long time back, I made a distinction between feeling and emotion. I perceived feeling to be real, honest expression while emotions were just labels given to these moments that sometimes made them lose value. When you feel, there is no reason for it, and no matter how hard you try to stop the feeling, you just can't. You can laugh without a cause, cry although you know it is pointless to and love like there's nothing to be lost. I believe, that when you truly feel things, you experience something that you can't define although it's identified by different names – happiness, love, anger, sadness,... pain. I left it at that at the time. Lately, I've been considering that pain is the rawest and most honest of all those feelings.
Although the term pain has always had negative connotations, I think there is beauty in it that stems from its rawness. While happiness and sadness can be feigned, pain is real. From a paper cut, to a thorn prick to the loss of someone loved, pain is like a thumping headache, constantly reminding us of our vulnerability to damage. Perhaps it's the fear of true feeling and of imperfection that makes us live life as a masquerade, with constantly changing disguises of happiness, joy, nonchalance and numbness. But, at the end of the show, the real character must take a bow, and I believe that Pain deserves a standing ovation.
I've heard people tell the world that they're alright when they're clearly not. I've seen them put on a smile that gives them the courage to deal with whatever comes their way, and I've seen them break down and become vulnerable again. The idea of being easily hurt scares people, myself included. The very idea of being defenceless, not knowing from where or when you can be attacked by spears of pain and hurt, is terrifying. The knowledge that other people and other things can have the power to make you feel anything but joy is unnerving. But therein lies the beauty of interconnectivity and relativity. What would light be without the darkness? What would joy be without sadness? What is calm without the storm?
If you don't accept pain and suffering, how will you get to see the wounds heal, watch the scars fade away into your skin; transform from being a part of you to a part of your past? How will you feel the hardness of skin that has become tough after harm, the relief of a mended heart, the song of a raw, bare soul? Is happiness flippant? Maybe, maybe not. But pain is definitely the real deal.
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