So what do we do with the bitter experiences in life? Learn from them? make lemonade?
One saying that always bugged me "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" What the bleep does that have to do with the reality of growing up in a dysfunctional home? Sometimes what doesn't kill you just cripples you.
Even worse after somebody young dies "The Good Lord doesn't give anything you can't handle!" Well the person who is dead obviously doesn't feel that way.
Of course those sayings and my response do not address the issue of how do we as individuals and groups handle the " bad" stuff that happens in the world. The parentheses because many believe that there is no "good or bad" there is just being. anyway everybody seems to agree that some things are ,on the surface at least, bad. Early death war betrayal childhood abuse those kinds of things.
If you give in to the cynicism you can become your own worst enemy. If you are unrealistically optimistic you can once again be your own worst enemy. How do you separate the crippling from the inconvenient or really scary? How do you experience life to its fullest without going nutso?
One saying that always bugged me "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" What the bleep does that have to do with the reality of growing up in a dysfunctional home? Sometimes what doesn't kill you just cripples you.
Even worse after somebody young dies "The Good Lord doesn't give anything you can't handle!" Well the person who is dead obviously doesn't feel that way.
Of course those sayings and my response do not address the issue of how do we as individuals and groups handle the " bad" stuff that happens in the world. The parentheses because many believe that there is no "good or bad" there is just being. anyway everybody seems to agree that some things are ,on the surface at least, bad. Early death war betrayal childhood abuse those kinds of things.
If you give in to the cynicism you can become your own worst enemy. If you are unrealistically optimistic you can once again be your own worst enemy. How do you separate the crippling from the inconvenient or really scary? How do you experience life to its fullest without going nutso?
Well, I am certainly unqualified to answer. I tend towards the unrealistically optimistic myself, because of all the dysfunctions available, that one gives you the most pleasant experience (at least until the real world snaps up to bite you again).
ReplyDelete"Good" and "Bad" might just be semantic labels made up by people, but we are people, and no matter how much we cut ourselves off, we live in society. Good and bad things do happen. Their effects are very real, no matter what kind of labels you do or don't put on them. Hurricane Katrina? In the overall balance, bad. Our friend Amy's death at age 19? In any kind of balance you care do to use, BAD. I don't put much stock in the Nietzsche attitude about that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. However, our reactions to them can make us stronger (or intensify the injury). Truth is--there's more than a 99% chance that we'll still be here tomorrow, and still have to deal with whatever's going on. However, there's also a 99% chance that something "good" is also going on at the same time. Sometimes just looking at the good can help.
My winning the lottery? In any point of view hasn't happened and is just a purely fictional daydream.
And to follow up on my own comments--a practical application on my last real statement about looking at the good: Just look at those two kids of yours--watch them horsing about, challenging some household animal, making life um "interesting" for their dad. I defy you to tell me life isn't Good. If the kids are out, search for "Lambert Hendricks Ross" on youtube. If that doesn't do it, call the men in the white suits... (or just sit and re-read Lafferty and Zelazny or some such).
DeleteLife has been very good for me. I know many for whom lfe has been terrible, as over against (Durn that Kurth!!) those I know who have chosen to make their life terrible. I have the Greeks in one "Best to never have lived at all, next to die young in battle with a wound in the front, worst to live a long life!" In the other the co-counseling community. One second of the worst possible agony is better than not having existed.
ReplyDelete