Thursday, May 12, 2005
I tend to start conversations with this question...and i often get it asked back, duh. My response is always the same - "Life is beautiful". Recently other's responses have caused me to think why i say that with such conviction.
Have i not been through hard times? Maybe no one near me passed away, but i have seen days of pain and nights of tears. Those near me will testify to that. Life can painful...
Have i not struggled? I have a good environment to study in (sometimes), to hold my faith in, and i don't have to deal with things such as a broken family and extreme financial difficulties. But i've seen my share of loneliness and i've had internal battles that rage on so violently i can physically feel them. Life can be hard....
Have i not felt sorrow? I may not have been exposed to genocides or mass murders, but the human soul is something so fragile and so precious that the mere touch of it can shatter it to pieces - that alone is enough. Life can be sad...
Have i nothing to endure? I may not be in a living hell or a torture chamber, but like everyone in this world, i've had to deal with unfairness (may i be so bold as to say i've had much more than my fair share of it), i've experienced injustice and very often been the object of hatred. Life can be unbearable...
Yet underneath it all, when you see through the tears, when you rise above the mountains of hardships, when you finally learn to fight the battles in your heart...Life is still beautiful.
I don't claim to be past all these things. Sometimes i just feel like crying and in the secrecy of my room and under the blanket, i weep. Sometimes the pain is so unbearable i have to sleep ("To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub!" -
Hamlet). But life will remain as beautiful as it always is.
Why? Why is it that life can still be beautiful despite all that the world destroys and evil tears down? My answer is your question. Life is beautiful simply because of these hardships. I'm no masochist and believe me when i say that i'd gladly trade all this pain and suffering for a bed of roses. But it is because of these that we are able to see the good against the bad. ("The irony of the entire existance of evil is that it inspires man to do good"
- Mastermind, X-men: The Age of Apocalypse) The tears will show the smiles. The war will show the peace. The rough seas will show the straight paths of life. And those straight paths are what makes life beautiful.
Roses always have thorns. But you don't look at the thorns when you buy the rose - you look at the rose. That's why you buy the rose in the first place. (Imagine: "Box of thorns - 2 for $3")
Life is beautiful - it always is.
Now repeat that after me.
simply jon.pondered @ 7:09 pm
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