Enigma: Question, Riddle, Mystery, Puzzle, Problem, Conundrum, Secret
Edward Edinger writes that pain is the "great enigma of existence." He says: "It is the perpetual dark companion to sentient being."
Young adults in my classes are often asking me why people don't write happy stories. They don't mean "happy endings"; they mean stories about good times, all the way through.
I tell them that happy stories aren't nearly as interesting as unsettling or tragic ones--stories with both happiness and tragedy are even better, for as William Blake wrote, "Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence."
There is no growth without pain.
I recently found this writing by someone in the aftermath of physical pain. The writer has personified pain and is writing in the voice of pain, who, in order to teach, must get the student's attention:
I am deep. If you would not fear me, be deep like me.
I come from the center. A point is my sign. A stab from me is the Cosmic Goad.
If you would not fear me, live each Present Moment with the same intensity that you experience me.
I am the great purifier. Only the essential can endure me. All else is burnt away.
I am the great valuer. All values come from me and my partner, Death.
I am the gateway to the Mysteries. An image of me is your highest concept of the Sacred. I am the quintessential Now. I lie in ambush for those who miss their daily dose of life. This elixir, unconsumed, accumulates and overspills its little vial, raining its concentrated torrent on the negligent soul.
I am the angel of Annunciation for the awesome Now. Time is a gliding serpent bearing precious jewels upon its back--each jewel a Present Moment.
Pain is necessary in order to have an encounter with the Self. With perseverence, Deo volente, light is born from darkness. The Contraries of darkness and light come together, and one is made whole.
Or not! Depending on the story you want to write.
Quotes from Edward Edinger, Encounter With the Self.
3 comments:
To take a reference once again from Jung, it is a propos here to note the contrast between the persona and the shadow. We are all a combination of opposites. The more we recognize that, the more "whole" we become and the closer we draw to individuation and our true Self. Thus the "dark companion" to whom Edinger refers. From a personal standpoint, despite the pain I have endured in my life, I know how much I have learned from it, and do not regret it. For such is the stuff of growth.
Brava, Theresa - keep on writing!
VS
Terrific!!
In Rollo May`s words " To grow is to be anxious "
V
I often explained this to a young very talented writer friend of mine--that all she needed to make her stories believable was to live a little longer. Right now she has had a very sheltered life, and there in no real pain in her writing.
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