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Mike Kay's avatar

Wow, this is a punch in the face brutal real wonderful awful incredible use of the English language!

I'm so grateful for this piece.

I've been lectured so often by sanctimonius asshats...your wounding serves you Mike, you won't heal until you let it go...was just the latest. My honest wish?

I probably shouldn't say, so I won't.

I've known too many who could never heal during their lives. It was literally, truly beyond them. In one particular case a super close friend who was like that visited me after her death. She raised her arms and was lit with incredible colours. She was so beautiful, the sheer remarkable beauty of the soul. I can't forget it to this day.

I won't bullshit anyone about this suffering thing, it just sucks. I've never found it to do anything worthwhile. Maybe it can increase ones tolerance to suffering, but then it just hardens the heart and leads one to develop a black sense of humor. It takes one hell of a lot longer to walk back from this, than to walk into it.

I can only discover one thing in suffering that might be found in no other way, and that is the hopelessness, the meaninglessness, the torture that when faced honestly results in the epiphany so adroitly penned here.

It is exactly this level of devastation that I have stood in too many times, but this is the first thing Ive read that honours the raw experience without the free lecture.

And this, as fucked up as it sounds, is to me the point.

The point is that it simply is life.

It isnt fair.

It fully sucks.

It serves no higher entity.

It isn't a doorway to ones renaissance.

It just fucking is.

Life is just like this.

Period.

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Mike's avatar

Wow. After reading this (twice) and the comments, words fail me. Going to read again and try to unpack when the 4 year old is not so distracting.

On the lighter side you mention animals and nature several times. I have an interesting story kind of related to pain. I planted 3 apple trees from bare root stock 2 winters ago. They thrived in their 1st year holding leaves on new branches well into the winter. Of courses they leaped forward with new growth this spring after I dutifully mulched and pruned them. One tree burst forth with beautiful blossoms and set a dozen apples when I was out of town. It was healthy and spectacular. Of course I dutifully removed the little perfectly formed apples. The tree went into shock and started dropping all its leaves and drying out its new twigs. I thought I’d lose it. So I asked it what the problem was because the other trees were doing good and there was no obvious signs of bugs or fungus. To my surprise the tree responded that I took her children. I have been apologizing for a week now and the die off has stopped and new growth is starting to appear. It also told me it did not like the coax cable over its canopy (it’s a mid dwarf tree). Bizarre huh?

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