The Pain Must Mean Something
A kid goes to school, seated at the back of the bus. Around him, people that look like him, talk like him and act like him doesn’t give him the light of the day. He sits and watches, quietly so as to not disturb them, so as not to attract attention. He watches and tries to understand. He wishes he had the same instincts, motives and reactions but he doesn’t. They watch him too and, not being able to understand him, stays away from him (at best) or pokes him to find out what he’ll do.
Then, the world opens up and a miracle transpires. He finds within him a power that no one around him can imagine. He’s able to shoot lasers out of his eyes. He has retractable claws made of unbreakable steel. He can fly. He can teleport. He’s part of a special group of humans and is wisked off into a magical school where he learns how to be the hero. Finally, through all the loneliness and pain, finally a reason for it. It all makes sense. He is special. He is unique. His pain means something. When I was really young (probably 10 or 11 years old) I was quite lonely. I imagined that at night, when the moon was full that I would turn into a werewolf. I imagined revealing this secret to some beautiful girl and she would see me for the special and powerful person that I really am — not the cowering child at the back of the bus.
Pick a story, pick a hero or heroine and the odds are, this is the origin story. Why is this story so popular? Why do we go see this story told over and over again in different skins?
I think its because we all imagine that we’re that little boy. We walk around through our lives trying to ignore the fact that the our bodies are limited and will eventually fail, that the people we love will die while we live and through it all, we are hurtling through space as a million miles an hour towards what, no body knows. When something good happens, we worry about the bad thing that’s probably just around the corner. We suffer. We suffer the very fact of existence.
And, when things get a little darker than usual, we wonder — Why? Why the fuck am I here? Why does everything hurt so much? Why all this pain? Wouldn’t it just be easier to end it all? There has to be more it than this, right? This isn’t some sick joke, right?
No, its not some sick joke. Life is tragic and painful , that’s a fact. You could be the kid sitting at the back of the bus or the beautiful, popular girl sitting and laughing with her friends two rows ahead of him. You’ll both go see the same movie. Unfortuntely, you’re not going to wake up one day and realize that you have super-human healing or that your a fucking wizard.
The best you can hope for is the story of Batman. The best you can hope for is that you had some people that came into this circus before you tried to make it a little bit better for you than it was for them. Then, with what they managed to achieve, you get to work your ass to the bone so that when the time comes that you’re staring down the barrel of all the reasons that nothing matters, you have something to show for the pain and suffering. So that all the blood, sweat and tears that went into keeping you alive was fucking worth it. To me, its like I paid to enter a theater and the cost of entry is pain an suffering but as soon as they let me in, I forgot what the hell I got in exchange. So, given that is the case, I decided that the best I can hope for is to try to spend the rest of my life trying to make the pain and suffering (both real and imagined) worth something. Like Batman turning the death of his parents into something meaningful, I’m trying to make the air I breathe mean something.
What I learned is that the world is a cluster fuck but hey, don’t be sad. It’s always been a cluster fuck. It only took me 30 years to realize this because I was blessed enough to have people in my life to take all the beatings in the teeth instead of me. It’s just another day on planet earth so all the shit that’s happening right now is not happening to you. It’s nothing personal. Whatever it is pulling you under water, you just happened to be where the whirlpool appeared so, better start swimming. That’s the thing. The power you have is the power to learn how to swim. You’re not going to magically grow a set of fucking gills or get a trident for christmas. You get to work. You get to toil. You get to power through this shit and feel good about it. Now that, is the real fucking miracle.
So, chin the fuck up. You’re not alone. You’re not a fucking alien from Mars with the power to control the weather. You’re just a human being and even though that might not be much, it’s hell of a lot more than what you are now so let’s fucking get to it.
