One of my favourite quotes from Calvin & Hobbes is ‘That’s one of the remarkable things about life. It’s never so bad that it can’t get worse.’ This can really help one to look at the current condition in a positive way and help them comfort themselves. But how would you feel when every time just as you try to somehow make yourself appear cheerful despite all the problems, life makes it a point to keep showing that it really can become worse? How long do you think you will be able to take it all?
Time is said to be the best healing factor. But does time really heal? Yes time does help one accept things, those things which you never even imagined you would be able to bear, and move on with life. So is healing all about just finally being able to accept things in life?
Life is beautiful, inherently. Healing as you say it, or rather growing up is about widening our understanding to find life so, no matter how bleak it does really appear. Hope you have the greatest of days.
Well, this immediately reminds of me of Voltaire’s Panglossian beliefs in Candide. A character named Pangloss in Voltaire’s writings is firmly rooted in the belief that all is best for us in this world, so much so that even when a person is left hanging by his arms in the prisons waiting to be executed in the gallows, during the days of the French Revolution, he is cheerful. Cheerful because there exists a possibility that he could be chewed to death by rats even as he is in prison, thus hastening his death. And since that isn’t happening, he is cheerful! This is a classic example of optimism being taken to slightly undesirable extents.
Yes, sometimes, we lose all sense of hope and believe things can never get worse. Again, yes, as you say, just when one tries to be happy, there comes something to show that things conspire against you. Ka, the poet, from Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, for this very reason, is afraid to be happy, is scared to be cheerful, because there is a fearful prospect of sorrow awaiting when it gets over.
Having said all that, yes, healing is just about learning to accept things. There is absolutely no way out in the battlefield. But, then, it is at times like these, we seek help in our friends-those close to us; turn to them for comfort/advise/solace by confiding our problems and fears.
Sathej
Contemplator,
Hmmm. Thank you
Sathej,
I haven’t read those. But what contrasting characters Pangloss and Ka are!
True!
I have used words to cope with problems in life and I have faced some incredible ones.
For fear I have used the littany against fear of frank herbert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litany_against_fear
When I am down with sorrow or humiliation or defeat, I recite the invictus – one of my most favorite english poems.
http://www.bartleby.com/103/7.html
Words can work wonders when you want something or anything at all to make you feel better.
Prasad,
I don’t read much of poetry. Will chk out the links. Thanks
I agree time is the healing factor. I guess, in reality what happens during that time is what actually heals. We tend to forget the intensity of the pain in course of time. May be our brain is wired like that by Nature (or God) in order for us to handle such situations in life.
But I would factor one more element to the healing process. That is “hope” in future/people/situtation/change/system/etc… Without hope there is nothing in life. We see that in all the religion in the world which try to answer big questions in life. Even though the enlightement movement in western history dreamt that belief in God/after life, would fade away in the modern world, we witness reversal of it in the 21st centuray. I think, the main reason for such reversal is this element “hope” offered by the theistic worldview. Atheism with all its pride in rationality, failed to meet the deepest needs of human – that is hope.
I would apply this overarching principles of “hope” to specific situations in life to find meaning and comfort.
I don’t get why hope should be viewed theistically or atheistically. There are perfectly rational explanations possible for hope.
Sathej
Naane,
Yes hope is indeed one of the healing factors