March 6, 2020 • 20 mins
Is it possible to entirely eliminate suffering from your life? And even if you could, what would your life ACTUALLY look like? We tend to think that finding happiness or peace within our lives requires the elimination suffering. But if there were no bad day, how could we know and appreciate the good days? Suffering isn't simply a byproduct of bad decisions, it is a necessity in life. Unfortunately, you will suffer. But if you can find the tools to help you properly deal with that pain, only then you will come into a place of knowing how to be truly happy. If you can't hide from pain, why not learn to fight it?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Strawt Media. This is the Motivation Report. I'm excited to
share this penultimate episode with you. I've got one more
(00:22):
major message to share with you before the show evolves
into something new. So in the meantime and especially afterward,
follow me on social to keep up with what's coming up.
I can be found at will Sterling Underscore. Additionally, since
this feed will remain live when my new podcast begins,
if it's been of many help to you these past
few years, or maybe just today, leave me a rating
and review. Every bit of support coming from you all
(00:42):
is key to our shared success and to spreading an
important message to a greater audience. Thank you for continuing
to listen, and I hope that you continue to do
so because what we have planned is very exciting. It's
going to take some time, but I'm really looking forward
to sharing it with you. That being said, I'd like
to get into something that most people are afraid to
talk about. I think I'm not entirely sure why, but
(01:06):
as a people, we've become obsessed with the idea of
eliminating suffering from our lives. That to suffer means to
be weak, and if we can remove all negativity and
negative thinking from our lives, then we'll both find peace
and happiness. But very few people talk about the balance
required to live a healthy life. You'd go crazy if
your diet, or exercise regimen or daily habits required you
(01:26):
never to break from the intended plan. Is it possible
to be happy with one extreme? Because a life completely
devoid of suffering is not necessarily a life of pure
peace and happiness, but one of extremes, one that, in
time is impossible to uphold. And when that idealized version
of what perfection is comes crashing down on you, who
will you be when everything you thought you knew is
(01:48):
now ash. For anyone who's stuck around for the entirety
of the show, you know that. I'm not really a
fan nor a proponent of the quote unquote self help industry.
I think the idea of self help similar to any
kind of idealized to run a society or people. In
some ways, it can be good ones. It's a thing
that began with the best of intentions, but in the
end is a thing that stands to make a profit
(02:09):
at the expense of people. That's technically any industry, and
I can't be mad at that. What is the age
oled notion. Though, catch a man of fish and you
feed him for a day, but teach a man to
fish and you feed him for life. Cheesy and corny.
I know that's ideally what self help should look to do, though, right,
But there's also a reason it is such a profitable industry.
Wrapped up in a blanket. Alongside health and wellness, mindfulness, meditation, fitness,
(02:32):
you name it. These are healthy practices turned into literal industries, which,
at the end of the day means they exist to
perform one primary function, make money. If self help books
or get rich seminars or wealth and investment retreats and
month long silence meditation excursions were one hundred percent effective,
why does the self in time still manage to have
(02:53):
bad days? Why is it so impossible to cure suffering
For the same reason prescribing painkillers does not. Rather, it
masks symptoms, and what we become addicted to is a
false feeling of euphoria. Much like any other substance, the
momentary high is enough to trick our brains and make
us believe that peace is possible, that we don't always
(03:13):
have to suffer. That one day, finally, on the horizon,
we will be happy. None of this is to say
these books are seminars or retreats or excursions are bad.
Quite the opposite, in fact. But their existence can only
be to help give you the tools, not to fix you.
Only you can fix you. Remember that that's key to
this entire podcast. I've always been hammering that home. I
(03:38):
guess you know this podcast doesn't change your life. Books,
then things don't change your life. You change your life.
But if you do not have the emotional tools to
do so, how will you be able to handle hurt
when it inevitably comes for you. Spend your money on
what will help you, but remember that no money can
be spent buying a cure for unhappiness that can only
come from within. I'm here for better or worse to
tell you the likelihood that the day after you find joy,
(04:00):
you're just as likely to find sorrow. I never set
out to be an intentional shit, trying to set fire
at everything you love just to get a rise or
reaction out of you. But it is important you remember
that you must have balance in your life. And just
as often as someone tells you you can do everything
you put your mind to, there will always be that
voice inside your head that asks, but what if I'm
actually no good? What if I'm actually a failure? That voice,
(04:24):
like it or not or believe it or not, is
a healthy one. You might call it self doubt or temptation,
but I call it balance because without a healthy dose
of pragmatism, without a little self doubt or nervous energy
or stage fright, it will be impossible to truly appreciate
the good in your life if you cannot recognize, process,
cope with, and accept the bad in your life. What
(04:47):
does a world without suffering look like to you? Is
it pure bliss? But again, what does pure bliss even
look like? Is it white light? Does it darkness? Is
it a field of flowers? Is it a pile of
junk food? The notion of a world without suffering is
an arbitrary one because no two people, down to the
finite details, could ever agree on what that would look like.
(05:07):
Religion will tell you what heaven is like or what
hell is like, but not a single one of them
could actually tell you exactly what it is like because
they have not been there. But in an effort to
sway you towards supporting their cause or adding to their numbers.
You're given a false promise. The truth is not one
person on this planet knows what heaven is like. Here
(05:29):
I go, maybe stirring shit unintentionally. Again, no, maybe it
is intentional. Let's find out. Maybe these people saw it
in a dream. I don't know, but maybe I saw
it in a dream. But why is one person's vision
of heaven more correct than another's? Why is one person's
message from God more important or more true than yours
or mine? The truth is that they're not. But those
(05:50):
who have never been given the tools to appreciate their
suffering can never know this. That is what it means
to be vulnerable. That is what it means to be
susceptible suggestion and persuasion. Because the pain one feels inside
is so great and the tools with which to deal
with it are so few, that they turn to another
person or to an establishment to solve their pain and
(06:11):
problems for them, just as so many turned to doctors
for prescriptions or opiates to mask the pain of what
is likely a legitimate injury that must be rehabilitated. We
live so much of our lives being told that pain
is a weakness. Because we feel pain, we must not
be strong, and to show that you are hurting is
the greatest weakness there is, because that's when enemies will strike.
(06:33):
But none of this is true. Perhaps thousands of years ago,
as we continue to evolve up the cognitive food chain,
we realize that to show weakness might get us kicked
out of the pack, or left behind or excommunicated to
be the weakest link meant to be exiled. But that's
not who we are anymore. Some of you might be
familiar with my dog, Dave, a beautiful German shepherd rescue
(06:54):
I got over five years ago. Dave and I were
thickest thieves and the best of friends, but despite our bond,
I did not know until it was too late that
he was sick. Dogs are very good at hiding and
masking their pain because of the pack mentality. If he
gave any major or overt signs that he was slipping
in his head, I might have kicked him out of
the pack. You and I, of course know that we
(07:16):
love our pets until the end. Well I hope you would,
But I cannot rationalize to a dog that to show
weakness is okay, that he can trust me. His biology
is what it is going to be and what I
thought was simply the onset of doggy middle age came
back as a positive test result for lymphoma. It had
(07:36):
progressed so far that from the phone call the vet
made to me giving me the news to having to
say goodbye to him was only two weeks in a day.
There could not have been any treatment with that kind
of window to save him, And now he's gone. I
cannot even begin to put to words how much Dave
meant to me that despite his flaws, he was an
(07:57):
absolute perfect dog and there could never, nor will there
ever be another dog quite like him. Losing him crippled
me for days. It is still difficult when I think
about how quiet my home is without him. It still
feels cold when I return and he's not at the
door to greet me, And it reminds me now how
all the little things that he used to do that
drove me nuts were secretly blessings, and I miss them
(08:20):
now more than I miss most things in life. But
who would I be if I let this suffering overtake me?
When I was fifteen and my mother passed away from
breast cancer, Luckily I had a family and a support system.
And a religion to fall back on to help me stand.
It is in this way that I see and know
religions positives and the benefit of its fellowship and community
(08:41):
based values. But it also told me things it could
not possibly uphold, that losing my mother was part of
God's plan, that she was in a better place, and
that some day we would all be in that place together.
Rather than hear from any one the words of I
know your hurting and it's okay to hurt, or it's
okay to be angry, it's okay to scream, it's okay
(09:03):
to not want to get out of bed, what I
mostly got was You'll be okay. It will all be
okay eventually, because that is God's plan. When I needed tools,
I received only words. Not that they had no value,
but they had no real application. The sentiment of positivity
(09:23):
and peace was present in their words, but the practicality
of how to actually deal with the pain was not,
because these people giving advice hadn't the tools themselves either,
and so in the presence of suffering, the advice becomes inactionable.
Usually it is simply the words I'm sorry for your loss,
but sorry doesn't bring my mom back, and it doesn't
bring back my dog either, And I decided that I
(09:46):
didn't want sorry. I wanted to learn to heal in
a healthy way. I knew that whatever place people had
told me my mom had gone to was not one
I could visit or see or preach about, because at
that moment, and this moment's thill, it doesn't exist to me.
How can we talk about a place or a peace
we can never see and never know? What does exist? However?
(10:11):
Is me my heart, despite my hurt, is still beating.
If I cannot be absolutely sure of the happiness others
tell me lies beyond, I must learn ways to make
my life here on this earth the happiest it could
possibly be. I must find the ways that peace is
practical on this planet, here and now, because as far
(10:33):
as I know, given the tools that I do have,
this is the only life I'm going to get, and
I must make the most of it. But I can't
do any of this without balance in coping with my grief.
If I had tilted to the extremes of feeling good,
it could have meant any number of things. I could
have become an addict. I could have become someone who
truly believes that severe illnesses like cancer can be cured
(10:56):
by removing all doubt from one's mind, which was actually
suggested to me by some one years ago, or I
could have believed what I had been taught my whole life,
that my plan and my life inherently did not matter.
God's plan was the master one, and because God's plan
was the most important, us humans had to witness, experience,
and bear the burden of our grief without proper explanation,
(11:18):
because ultimately God did not owe us an explanation. We
were simply to trust the word and trust the plan. Eventually,
after dabbling a bed in each of these categories, I
found that none of them worked for me. The alcohol,
much like the prescription, did not alleviate my suffering, and
I am lucky it to not become a lasting problem,
despite it being one for the better part of two years.
(11:38):
It masked the symptoms, but once I would sober up,
the choice was either to hide from the hurt by
opening another bottle, or stare my suffering in the face
and tackle it. Religion promised me nothing but secrets that
were not mine to know until I was dead, which
technically could be at any moment. I suppose that's an
important thing to keep in mind when dealing with your suffering,
(11:59):
that life truly is precious and it is not permanent.
The removal of all doubt from my life lasted about
a year, which in hindsight sounds like a remarkable length
of time. In my pursuit of acting and writing, success
and fame, I had to tell and convince myself that
I was deserving of those things, that nothing could or
would stand in my way, and that it was achieving
(12:20):
those things or nothing. But how then would I deal
with what later became constant rejection in years of failure.
And no point during this dabbling did I ever learn
about balance. I never considered that despite its setting, the
sun also rises. Despite loss, there is always so much
to gain. My outlook on life has since become one
(12:40):
a bit like the Yin and the yang, two opposing
forces locked in perfect swirling, mesmerizing balance, that only because
of one are we allowed to have the other, and
that without the presence of both simultaneously we have absolute chaos.
And when we choose one extreme, we dive headfirst into
that chaos and hope to tread water, But it will
inevitably drown us because we are not equipped to deal
(13:03):
with extremes the same way you cannot spend all day
in direct sunlight and not get burned, and especially the
same way you cannot experience absolute bliss without the eventual
absolute destruction of all the things you hold most dear.
Death is an inevitability. Despite our efforts to stave it
off for more and more years through science, or our
(13:25):
attempts to fool others into thinking we're much younger than
we appear through surgery and expensive skin care products, at
some point, everything, including us, passes away. I hate to
be the bearer of bad news, but if you're running
from mortality, you're running toward an extreme, and that will
not serve you in the long run, because the extreme
is very high, and if the goal in life is
(13:46):
to be grounded, the fall from an extreme is an
incredibly long and painful one. Unless you have learned to
deal with hurt, it is quite possible you will not
get back up when that magic carpet is pulled out
from under you. Simply put suffer. Differing is a necessity
you will and you must suffer in your life. It
is not something that can be removed nor should it
(14:07):
be something you try to remove. It can be something
you hope to alleviate, but not something that can be avoided,
and alleviating pain often comes most effectively through the grieving process,
working hard to obtain the life skills in order to
ensure that despite the hurt, in time, you will heal.
I think too often we like to think of the
(14:29):
spirit as something that must be metaphorically pure, and that
purity is achieved at the cost of the self. That
your deep down desire doesn't really matter, and you should
hide your scars, because in order to reach enlightenment there
must be an entire removal of the self. That once
you can understand your technical insignificance in this world, only
then will you find bliss. But this removal of the
(14:52):
self is only half of the scale. Now overweghed to
one extreme because the other side of that argument is
what for many years I've referred to as why human
beings are the most beautiful contradictions. Because to find balance,
we must understand that we are simultaneously the least important
thing in the universe and the most important thing in
the universe. But how could we possibly be both The
(15:14):
removal of the ego or the super ego to understand
the ID on a more primal level, one that will
remind us of our insignificance is not healthy, Nor is
an ego or super ego that is overinflated to such
an extreme of neglecting the ID. All three of these
things must work together to create, at least in Freud's opinion,
a well balanced, mentally healthy individual. For argument's sake, I
(15:35):
find them effective examples. To understand that you are both
wholly unimportant and infinitely important is to be conscious of
the balance within you and within the world, and to
know your place in it. Because the history books will
not remember the majority of our names in the pantheon
of time, what we do will matter very little in
what appears to be a grand scheme or God's plan,
(15:56):
as it were. But what we do now is also everything,
because all these seemingly microscopic actions add up to build
that pantheon of time. If all actions are building blocks,
the temple of time is built upon all things that happen.
And despite our ability to feel like we have no significance,
and to know that technically, without a temporal magnifying glass
(16:16):
to be held up to our individual pasts, we will
appear as nothing. It is still impossible to build that
temple without our participation in this world. In time, all
these tiny actions become one, and the necessity of our
existence becomes paramount because without you, the world simply would
not be the same. You are desperately needed. Your story
(16:37):
must be told because you make history richer. You make
the temple of time more ornate. Despite your seeming cosmic insignificance,
you matter so much more than you know. Understanding these
things on a deeper level also allows us to work
toward processing and dealing with our grief for suffering. The
familiar saying is you don't know what you've got until
(16:58):
it's gone, which could not be truer. No one really
takes the time to sit and unpack what that actually means.
That although we have a lot of conversations these days
on how to live in the present or be more present,
when we are entirely in the present and try to
block out our past, we will lose sight of the
blessings happening all around us, because one day there will
(17:20):
be a future where those blessings cease, and rather than
deal with that sudden, stop loss, we will continue to
try to block out our painful pasts. Each day I
had with Dave was a blessing, but a normal adult
life ensured. There were plenty of days I took for
granted because Dave was a constant in that day to
day cycle. And only now that he is gone would
(17:41):
I be willing to trade all those trips and vacations
and experiences and money in the world just for one
more walk around the neighborhood with him. Losing Dave was
an inevitability. Losing my mother at some point, perhaps not
necessarily at such a young age, was an inevitability. She,
much like Dave, did not choose the cancer. None of
(18:03):
us did, and none of us do. But it came
for both of them, and it took them in their absence.
It is my responsibility to make the most of their memories,
not run from them. And despite many of my reflections
causing me some varying degrees of suffering, it is not
the bad times I think of. It is the good.
(18:26):
It is all those walks around the neighborhood. It's my
mom calling me her baby boy. It's that stinky dog
breath and his paws that smelt like Freedo's. Itce my
mom's love of the holidays, especially Christmas. It is Dave's beautiful,
big brown eyes and his worried little eyebrows. It is
Maria's decade long fight against breast cancer, one she waged
(18:49):
until the end without fear. I have worked hard to
find peace after my divorce, have allowed myself to be
dragged through the emotional mud of relationship drama or a
few badges from the Broken Hearts club. But now that
the dust is settled, I reflect on my exes with gratitude,
because even while the hurt is happening, there is always
(19:10):
that voice within me that balances myself doubt, the faith
that calms my fear, the knowledge that everything is going
to be all right. It might not be part of
God's plan, but it is all the individual parts of mine.
These are my memories. These are the echoes of my
being vibrating into eternity when my heartstrings are plucked, and
(19:32):
without them I would not be me. If at some
point I hope to look back on my life and
live in a place of peace, passion, grace, or gratitude,
I must remember to love this struggle that the yin
and yang are not two, but one, that the sun
also rises, and that my suffering in order to create
(19:53):
my happiness is required. I must be aware of these
things because I know that without them, all for better
or word, I can only appreciate my life at its
best when I have learned how to appreciate it at
its worst. This is the necessity of suffering. But one day,
if we're willing to try, we will find gratitude through grief.
Strawt Media. This is the Motivation Report. I'm excited to
share this penultimate episode with you. I've got one more
(00:22):
major message to share with you before the show evolves
into something new. So in the meantime and especially afterward,
follow me on social to keep up with what's coming up.
I can be found at will Sterling Underscore. Additionally, since
this feed will remain live when my new podcast begins,
if it's been of many help to you these past
few years, or maybe just today, leave me a rating
and review. Every bit of support coming from you all
(00:42):
is key to our shared success and to spreading an
important message to a greater audience. Thank you for continuing
to listen, and I hope that you continue to do
so because what we have planned is very exciting. It's
going to take some time, but I'm really looking forward
to sharing it with you. That being said, I'd like
to get into something that most people are afraid to
talk about. I think I'm not entirely sure why, but
(01:06):
as a people, we've become obsessed with the idea of
eliminating suffering from our lives. That to suffer means to
be weak, and if we can remove all negativity and
negative thinking from our lives, then we'll both find peace
and happiness. But very few people talk about the balance
required to live a healthy life. You'd go crazy if
your diet, or exercise regimen or daily habits required you
(01:26):
never to break from the intended plan. Is it possible
to be happy with one extreme? Because a life completely
devoid of suffering is not necessarily a life of pure
peace and happiness, but one of extremes, one that, in
time is impossible to uphold. And when that idealized version
of what perfection is comes crashing down on you, who
will you be when everything you thought you knew is
(01:48):
now ash. For anyone who's stuck around for the entirety
of the show, you know that. I'm not really a
fan nor a proponent of the quote unquote self help industry.
I think the idea of self help similar to any
kind of idealized to run a society or people. In
some ways, it can be good ones. It's a thing
that began with the best of intentions, but in the
end is a thing that stands to make a profit
(02:09):
at the expense of people. That's technically any industry, and
I can't be mad at that. What is the age
oled notion. Though, catch a man of fish and you
feed him for a day, but teach a man to
fish and you feed him for life. Cheesy and corny.
I know that's ideally what self help should look to do, though, right,
But there's also a reason it is such a profitable industry.
Wrapped up in a blanket. Alongside health and wellness, mindfulness, meditation, fitness,
(02:32):
you name it. These are healthy practices turned into literal industries, which,
at the end of the day means they exist to
perform one primary function, make money. If self help books
or get rich seminars or wealth and investment retreats and
month long silence meditation excursions were one hundred percent effective,
why does the self in time still manage to have
(02:53):
bad days? Why is it so impossible to cure suffering
For the same reason prescribing painkillers does not. Rather, it
masks symptoms, and what we become addicted to is a
false feeling of euphoria. Much like any other substance, the
momentary high is enough to trick our brains and make
us believe that peace is possible, that we don't always
(03:13):
have to suffer. That one day, finally, on the horizon,
we will be happy. None of this is to say
these books are seminars or retreats or excursions are bad.
Quite the opposite, in fact. But their existence can only
be to help give you the tools, not to fix you.
Only you can fix you. Remember that that's key to
this entire podcast. I've always been hammering that home. I
(03:38):
guess you know this podcast doesn't change your life. Books,
then things don't change your life. You change your life.
But if you do not have the emotional tools to
do so, how will you be able to handle hurt
when it inevitably comes for you. Spend your money on
what will help you, but remember that no money can
be spent buying a cure for unhappiness that can only
come from within. I'm here for better or worse to
tell you the likelihood that the day after you find joy,
(04:00):
you're just as likely to find sorrow. I never set
out to be an intentional shit, trying to set fire
at everything you love just to get a rise or
reaction out of you. But it is important you remember
that you must have balance in your life. And just
as often as someone tells you you can do everything
you put your mind to, there will always be that
voice inside your head that asks, but what if I'm
actually no good? What if I'm actually a failure? That voice,
(04:24):
like it or not or believe it or not, is
a healthy one. You might call it self doubt or temptation,
but I call it balance because without a healthy dose
of pragmatism, without a little self doubt or nervous energy
or stage fright, it will be impossible to truly appreciate
the good in your life if you cannot recognize, process,
cope with, and accept the bad in your life. What
(04:47):
does a world without suffering look like to you? Is
it pure bliss? But again, what does pure bliss even
look like? Is it white light? Does it darkness? Is
it a field of flowers? Is it a pile of
junk food? The notion of a world without suffering is
an arbitrary one because no two people, down to the
finite details, could ever agree on what that would look like.
(05:07):
Religion will tell you what heaven is like or what
hell is like, but not a single one of them
could actually tell you exactly what it is like because
they have not been there. But in an effort to
sway you towards supporting their cause or adding to their numbers.
You're given a false promise. The truth is not one
person on this planet knows what heaven is like. Here
(05:29):
I go, maybe stirring shit unintentionally. Again, no, maybe it
is intentional. Let's find out. Maybe these people saw it
in a dream. I don't know, but maybe I saw
it in a dream. But why is one person's vision
of heaven more correct than another's? Why is one person's
message from God more important or more true than yours
or mine? The truth is that they're not. But those
(05:50):
who have never been given the tools to appreciate their
suffering can never know this. That is what it means
to be vulnerable. That is what it means to be
susceptible suggestion and persuasion. Because the pain one feels inside
is so great and the tools with which to deal
with it are so few, that they turn to another
person or to an establishment to solve their pain and
(06:11):
problems for them, just as so many turned to doctors
for prescriptions or opiates to mask the pain of what
is likely a legitimate injury that must be rehabilitated. We
live so much of our lives being told that pain
is a weakness. Because we feel pain, we must not
be strong, and to show that you are hurting is
the greatest weakness there is, because that's when enemies will strike.
(06:33):
But none of this is true. Perhaps thousands of years ago,
as we continue to evolve up the cognitive food chain,
we realize that to show weakness might get us kicked
out of the pack, or left behind or excommunicated to
be the weakest link meant to be exiled. But that's
not who we are anymore. Some of you might be
familiar with my dog, Dave, a beautiful German shepherd rescue
(06:54):
I got over five years ago. Dave and I were
thickest thieves and the best of friends, but despite our bond,
I did not know until it was too late that
he was sick. Dogs are very good at hiding and
masking their pain because of the pack mentality. If he
gave any major or overt signs that he was slipping
in his head, I might have kicked him out of
the pack. You and I, of course know that we
(07:16):
love our pets until the end. Well I hope you would,
But I cannot rationalize to a dog that to show
weakness is okay, that he can trust me. His biology
is what it is going to be and what I
thought was simply the onset of doggy middle age came
back as a positive test result for lymphoma. It had
(07:36):
progressed so far that from the phone call the vet
made to me giving me the news to having to
say goodbye to him was only two weeks in a day.
There could not have been any treatment with that kind
of window to save him, And now he's gone. I
cannot even begin to put to words how much Dave
meant to me that despite his flaws, he was an
(07:57):
absolute perfect dog and there could never, nor will there
ever be another dog quite like him. Losing him crippled
me for days. It is still difficult when I think
about how quiet my home is without him. It still
feels cold when I return and he's not at the
door to greet me, And it reminds me now how
all the little things that he used to do that
drove me nuts were secretly blessings, and I miss them
(08:20):
now more than I miss most things in life. But
who would I be if I let this suffering overtake me?
When I was fifteen and my mother passed away from
breast cancer, Luckily I had a family and a support system.
And a religion to fall back on to help me stand.
It is in this way that I see and know
religions positives and the benefit of its fellowship and community
(08:41):
based values. But it also told me things it could
not possibly uphold, that losing my mother was part of
God's plan, that she was in a better place, and
that some day we would all be in that place together.
Rather than hear from any one the words of I
know your hurting and it's okay to hurt, or it's
okay to be angry, it's okay to scream, it's okay
(09:03):
to not want to get out of bed, what I
mostly got was You'll be okay. It will all be
okay eventually, because that is God's plan. When I needed tools,
I received only words. Not that they had no value,
but they had no real application. The sentiment of positivity
(09:23):
and peace was present in their words, but the practicality
of how to actually deal with the pain was not,
because these people giving advice hadn't the tools themselves either,
and so in the presence of suffering, the advice becomes inactionable.
Usually it is simply the words I'm sorry for your loss,
but sorry doesn't bring my mom back, and it doesn't
bring back my dog either, And I decided that I
(09:46):
didn't want sorry. I wanted to learn to heal in
a healthy way. I knew that whatever place people had
told me my mom had gone to was not one
I could visit or see or preach about, because at
that moment, and this moment's thill, it doesn't exist to me.
How can we talk about a place or a peace
we can never see and never know? What does exist? However?
(10:11):
Is me my heart, despite my hurt, is still beating.
If I cannot be absolutely sure of the happiness others
tell me lies beyond, I must learn ways to make
my life here on this earth the happiest it could
possibly be. I must find the ways that peace is
practical on this planet, here and now, because as far
(10:33):
as I know, given the tools that I do have,
this is the only life I'm going to get, and
I must make the most of it. But I can't
do any of this without balance in coping with my grief.
If I had tilted to the extremes of feeling good,
it could have meant any number of things. I could
have become an addict. I could have become someone who
truly believes that severe illnesses like cancer can be cured
(10:56):
by removing all doubt from one's mind, which was actually
suggested to me by some one years ago, or I
could have believed what I had been taught my whole life,
that my plan and my life inherently did not matter.
God's plan was the master one, and because God's plan
was the most important, us humans had to witness, experience,
and bear the burden of our grief without proper explanation,
(11:18):
because ultimately God did not owe us an explanation. We
were simply to trust the word and trust the plan. Eventually,
after dabbling a bed in each of these categories, I
found that none of them worked for me. The alcohol,
much like the prescription, did not alleviate my suffering, and
I am lucky it to not become a lasting problem,
despite it being one for the better part of two years.
(11:38):
It masked the symptoms, but once I would sober up,
the choice was either to hide from the hurt by
opening another bottle, or stare my suffering in the face
and tackle it. Religion promised me nothing but secrets that
were not mine to know until I was dead, which
technically could be at any moment. I suppose that's an
important thing to keep in mind when dealing with your suffering,
(11:59):
that life truly is precious and it is not permanent.
The removal of all doubt from my life lasted about
a year, which in hindsight sounds like a remarkable length
of time. In my pursuit of acting and writing, success
and fame, I had to tell and convince myself that
I was deserving of those things, that nothing could or
would stand in my way, and that it was achieving
(12:20):
those things or nothing. But how then would I deal
with what later became constant rejection in years of failure.
And no point during this dabbling did I ever learn
about balance. I never considered that despite its setting, the
sun also rises. Despite loss, there is always so much
to gain. My outlook on life has since become one
(12:40):
a bit like the Yin and the yang, two opposing
forces locked in perfect swirling, mesmerizing balance, that only because
of one are we allowed to have the other, and
that without the presence of both simultaneously we have absolute chaos.
And when we choose one extreme, we dive headfirst into
that chaos and hope to tread water, But it will
inevitably drown us because we are not equipped to deal
(13:03):
with extremes the same way you cannot spend all day
in direct sunlight and not get burned, and especially the
same way you cannot experience absolute bliss without the eventual
absolute destruction of all the things you hold most dear.
Death is an inevitability. Despite our efforts to stave it
off for more and more years through science, or our
(13:25):
attempts to fool others into thinking we're much younger than
we appear through surgery and expensive skin care products, at
some point, everything, including us, passes away. I hate to
be the bearer of bad news, but if you're running
from mortality, you're running toward an extreme, and that will
not serve you in the long run, because the extreme
is very high, and if the goal in life is
(13:46):
to be grounded, the fall from an extreme is an
incredibly long and painful one. Unless you have learned to
deal with hurt, it is quite possible you will not
get back up when that magic carpet is pulled out
from under you. Simply put suffer. Differing is a necessity
you will and you must suffer in your life. It
is not something that can be removed nor should it
(14:07):
be something you try to remove. It can be something
you hope to alleviate, but not something that can be avoided,
and alleviating pain often comes most effectively through the grieving process,
working hard to obtain the life skills in order to
ensure that despite the hurt, in time, you will heal.
I think too often we like to think of the
(14:29):
spirit as something that must be metaphorically pure, and that
purity is achieved at the cost of the self. That
your deep down desire doesn't really matter, and you should
hide your scars, because in order to reach enlightenment there
must be an entire removal of the self. That once
you can understand your technical insignificance in this world, only
then will you find bliss. But this removal of the
(14:52):
self is only half of the scale. Now overweghed to
one extreme because the other side of that argument is
what for many years I've referred to as why human
beings are the most beautiful contradictions. Because to find balance,
we must understand that we are simultaneously the least important
thing in the universe and the most important thing in
the universe. But how could we possibly be both The
(15:14):
removal of the ego or the super ego to understand
the ID on a more primal level, one that will
remind us of our insignificance is not healthy, Nor is
an ego or super ego that is overinflated to such
an extreme of neglecting the ID. All three of these
things must work together to create, at least in Freud's opinion,
a well balanced, mentally healthy individual. For argument's sake, I
(15:35):
find them effective examples. To understand that you are both
wholly unimportant and infinitely important is to be conscious of
the balance within you and within the world, and to
know your place in it. Because the history books will
not remember the majority of our names in the pantheon
of time, what we do will matter very little in
what appears to be a grand scheme or God's plan,
(15:56):
as it were. But what we do now is also everything,
because all these seemingly microscopic actions add up to build
that pantheon of time. If all actions are building blocks,
the temple of time is built upon all things that happen.
And despite our ability to feel like we have no significance,
and to know that technically, without a temporal magnifying glass
(16:16):
to be held up to our individual pasts, we will
appear as nothing. It is still impossible to build that
temple without our participation in this world. In time, all
these tiny actions become one, and the necessity of our
existence becomes paramount because without you, the world simply would
not be the same. You are desperately needed. Your story
(16:37):
must be told because you make history richer. You make
the temple of time more ornate. Despite your seeming cosmic insignificance,
you matter so much more than you know. Understanding these
things on a deeper level also allows us to work
toward processing and dealing with our grief for suffering. The
familiar saying is you don't know what you've got until
(16:58):
it's gone, which could not be truer. No one really
takes the time to sit and unpack what that actually means.
That although we have a lot of conversations these days
on how to live in the present or be more present,
when we are entirely in the present and try to
block out our past, we will lose sight of the
blessings happening all around us, because one day there will
(17:20):
be a future where those blessings cease, and rather than
deal with that sudden, stop loss, we will continue to
try to block out our painful pasts. Each day I
had with Dave was a blessing, but a normal adult
life ensured. There were plenty of days I took for
granted because Dave was a constant in that day to
day cycle. And only now that he is gone would
(17:41):
I be willing to trade all those trips and vacations
and experiences and money in the world just for one
more walk around the neighborhood with him. Losing Dave was
an inevitability. Losing my mother at some point, perhaps not
necessarily at such a young age, was an inevitability. She,
much like Dave, did not choose the cancer. None of
(18:03):
us did, and none of us do. But it came
for both of them, and it took them in their absence.
It is my responsibility to make the most of their memories,
not run from them. And despite many of my reflections
causing me some varying degrees of suffering, it is not
the bad times I think of. It is the good.
(18:26):
It is all those walks around the neighborhood. It's my
mom calling me her baby boy. It's that stinky dog
breath and his paws that smelt like Freedo's. Itce my
mom's love of the holidays, especially Christmas. It is Dave's beautiful,
big brown eyes and his worried little eyebrows. It is
Maria's decade long fight against breast cancer, one she waged
(18:49):
until the end without fear. I have worked hard to
find peace after my divorce, have allowed myself to be
dragged through the emotional mud of relationship drama or a
few badges from the Broken Hearts club. But now that
the dust is settled, I reflect on my exes with gratitude,
because even while the hurt is happening, there is always
(19:10):
that voice within me that balances myself doubt, the faith
that calms my fear, the knowledge that everything is going
to be all right. It might not be part of
God's plan, but it is all the individual parts of mine.
These are my memories. These are the echoes of my
being vibrating into eternity when my heartstrings are plucked, and
(19:32):
without them I would not be me. If at some
point I hope to look back on my life and
live in a place of peace, passion, grace, or gratitude,
I must remember to love this struggle that the yin
and yang are not two, but one, that the sun
also rises, and that my suffering in order to create
(19:53):
my happiness is required. I must be aware of these
things because I know that without them, all for better
or word, I can only appreciate my life at its
best when I have learned how to appreciate it at
its worst. This is the necessity of suffering. But one day,
if we're willing to try, we will find gratitude through grief.
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