When one gets older he either grow numb or increases the
capacity to feel. I belong to the latter of the two groups. With the capacity
comes mountaintop highs that are so filled with joy and happiness; however, I
cannot arrive atop without first going through the valley. The sense of wonder,
exhaustion, sheer awe upon arrival the shallowness of language cannot
grasp. The majestic view looking out
over the hills that seemed to never end, forests filled with darkness for
thieves to hide, rocks with sharp edges, and vast crevasses you spent the days,
weeks, sometimes years, passing through are all a part of the beautiful scenery
that brings that amazing sense of joy. One would never say that the suffering
it took to get there is something they'd ever want to do again or wish on
another, but simultaneously this onlooker would not ever trade the mountaintop
view for anything.
Because of the mountaintop I say will pain! Will suffering!
In order to experience such a joy one must know pain. When pain comes allow it,
say to yourself, "I cannot hope to reach the mountain without going
through these forests and hills! Even if I do not make it to the mountain I
will not have waited in the village to become numb!" Because those who do
not will pain do indeed become numb to it. They endure, they wait, they hurt
without ever knowing it. Eventually becoming indifferent to their own plight
and the plight of others.
I cannot express any action greater than that of love. If I
am insensitive to the plight of others then I cannot love them; to love is to
be empathetic, to listen, to share with them in their suffering. When one
increases his capacity to feel pain, to arrive on the mountain top, he can in
fact go back and love with a more exuberant capacity than any man who wills the
numbing.
To will the mountaintop and pain is not to negate the hurt
that comes in the process; rather, it may enhance it. Neither is willed pain a
sadistic self fulfillment. Pain is something that all will experience at some
point or another. Why else would the
pursuit of money be so popular? A piece of paper or metal that has no value
other than that which we say it has. Money can buy things to alleviate pain. To
avoid it. All just attempts to avoid pain that is seemingly the only way atop
to take in the glorious view that so few have ever seen!
Willed suffering is also not to diminish any of the beautiful
aspects of the journey. What could be more beautiful than a rose nestled
between two rocks as if they were saying, “She is ours. We, though only
portions of this mountain, protect that which is most beautiful and far too fragile
to exists here on it’s own.” Nature protecting nature. Or a doe with it’s young
in that fearsome forest filled with highwaymen and marauders? Would one have
ever been able to see the offspring and it’s loving mother? No. I dare say none
of these things would have been witnessed were it not for the journey that is
pain.
However, this is not all pain. Pain can just as easily lead
through a desert where the sun will scorch your head in the day followed by a
plunging of temperature so drastic you may forget the sun altogether. Pain, she
is fickle and mysterious of that there is no doubt.
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