On Suffering

On Suffering

Our problem and our psychosis is that we don’t suffer. For thousands and thousands of years humans have never had to worry about suffering. It was always present, free and available in sufficient quantities for everyone. It tempered the soul. It was the land we walked and the air we breathed. It was the launch pad of consciousness. The germinator of religion. The suffering we felt at the necessity of robbing an equal creature/an equal soul of life to sustain our own. This terrible selfishness. This Thou Shalt Not Kill. This commandment broken again and again, hands wet with blood, arms tired with brutal pummeling. Don’t be hoodwinked by your culture. During this time, this slow explosion of mind and matter, that would eventually sweep the planet – we did not see ourselves as any different from the life around us. Killing our brothers and sisters and eating their flesh – first was born ritual to grapple with the suffering this caused, this terrible guilt. The original sin. Who were we to decide life and death – to mete punishment first with our hands and then with the tools we made with our minds?

The suffering of the struggle to survive, the suffering of losing loved ones to the brutality of defense, accident, disease, predation…the suffering of how short the time was. Humanity has done its utmost to divorce itself from suffering and has largely succeeded in the more “developed” places. So minds become stunted. Hearts atrophied without the air of suffering to breathe. And when we do have the opportunity to suffer – to steep our souls in the cauldron of fire which made us – the fiery vessel of God – it is too bright, too warm and cruel for our distended souls, our shriveled hearts – so we turn away – we deal in repression/psychosis/depression – we stuff ourselves with Words, pad our minds with empty concepts – God/Faith/Nihilism/Fate/Greed/Gluttony/Alcohol/Drugs/Hatred/Jealousy/Anxiety/Depression/Insomnia…all that we supposedly abhor – we become – because we do not know how to suffer. Of course – who would choose to suffer? If given the choice – who would mantle themselves with this thorough garment of pain? So we sequester ourselves in our safe rooms of empty days and the collection of material and the easy subjugation of our brothers and sisters – we eat now without suffering – we eat empty promises and empty calories – and belch into the sky our stink at having been cooped up in our safe rooms without the benefit of the cleansing and purifying bath of suffering. We desperately need to suffer and each and every one of us knows this, each of us carries a seed planted deep within our consciousness…but not enough bloom…the seeds lie dormant, encased, ungerminated – spreading their invisible radiation to suffuse all aspects of life with the poison of non-being, non-belief…but – this will be taken care of – collectively. Without knowing it – we will manufacture our suffering – engineered in the dark places, unknown to us but it’s course as sure as an arrow, to burst forth in a glorious and hideous flood of suffering the likes of which will make WWII pale in comparison….to bring us back to our roots, to let us breathe good air and know ourselves.  So the question is – will enough people tend lovingly to this seed, give it the water of their tears and the nutrients of their active engagement with the world as it truly is – a construct of spirit and matter – the natural expression of which is suffering – to awaken the seed and have it grow and bear its fruit…and this fruit is called Human with a capital ‘H’, whole and enlightened consciousness, unfractured, selfless and paradoxically without suffering because the long journey we are all asked to make, simply by being born, has been trodden. The only way out is through.