I wish to comment briefly on how much it hurts to be human. This may seem like a particularly self-pitying wish, however the thought I would express may only be arrived at through personal experience thus is inevitably seen through the self.
In the summer a friend brought an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin to my attention which had a pretty deep impact upon some areas of my thinking. One sentence springs to mind now:
"People crave objectivity because to be subjective is to be embodied, to be a body, vulnerable, violable."
I crave objectivity, admittedly less than I used to but every now and again I experience emotion that I would rather escape. At one point in my life I began to idolise the concept that could cut emotion right out of the picture; to never have the risk of painful emotion would be ideal. I regarded objectivity as that concept- beautiful, unreachable. I soon realised however that if I were objective I would be unable to appreciate it; it is not possible for one emotion to exist without a contrast.
In happier times I re-evaluated my decision acknowledging the rich experience that being subjective, being a body, may offer. Someone once told me that joy may co-exist with any other emotion...
these are things we must remember.
When faced with the pain of rejection or of loneliness, we can still recognise the fact that we exist and that that alone is a wonderful thing. If we can just take a step back to remember the world that we are part of we may be able to place our pain in perspective. I don't believe that we are completely helpless.
To end with a rather cryptic metaphor I settled on in a moment of melancholy:
There is more to this life than myself. I must accept that I cannot carry, within my pockets, every pebble I spy on the path- some of them are special in the moment only and must be left behind...
In the summer a friend brought an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin to my attention which had a pretty deep impact upon some areas of my thinking. One sentence springs to mind now:
"People crave objectivity because to be subjective is to be embodied, to be a body, vulnerable, violable."
I crave objectivity, admittedly less than I used to but every now and again I experience emotion that I would rather escape. At one point in my life I began to idolise the concept that could cut emotion right out of the picture; to never have the risk of painful emotion would be ideal. I regarded objectivity as that concept- beautiful, unreachable. I soon realised however that if I were objective I would be unable to appreciate it; it is not possible for one emotion to exist without a contrast.
In happier times I re-evaluated my decision acknowledging the rich experience that being subjective, being a body, may offer. Someone once told me that joy may co-exist with any other emotion...
these are things we must remember.
When faced with the pain of rejection or of loneliness, we can still recognise the fact that we exist and that that alone is a wonderful thing. If we can just take a step back to remember the world that we are part of we may be able to place our pain in perspective. I don't believe that we are completely helpless.
To end with a rather cryptic metaphor I settled on in a moment of melancholy:
There is more to this life than myself. I must accept that I cannot carry, within my pockets, every pebble I spy on the path- some of them are special in the moment only and must be left behind...
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