Pain
"The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience."
Friedrich The Failure
Kelly Clarkson made a famous jingle in 2011 that went, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Stand a little taller. Doesn’t mean I’m lonely when I’m alone.” Now, besides the fact that the song is an absolute bop, there is actually a much deeper merit to her words here. Okay well I say her words, but the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, doesn’t actually come from Kelly Clarkson. I know, I was saddened by this news as well. It actually comes from a German philosopher born in 1844, named Friedrich Nietzche.
Friedrich, in his youth was a classic fuck-up. His grades in school were piss poor. He attempted to become a composer, in which his music was so bad that one time he tried to make a composition for his wife as a birthday gift, and it was described as, “so terrible and dreadful it was upsetting”. His friends and family mocked his music, shying him away from that career path. He then tried to pursue a study in Christian theology, in which he was promptly flunked out after spending too much time with a drunken poet outside of class, which in turn led him to show up to his classes blasted out of his mind from slamming whiskey and vodka. His family began to have enough of his shit, and was upset about him losing his faith. His sister wrote him about how pissed off she was about him abandoning God, to which he replied:
“Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire…”
Friedrich was beginning to understand that even though his life was headed towards rock bottom, he was growing from his failures. That if you want to believe and hope for a constant stream of happiness, you will never find it, and instead you will find much more lessons and meaning in inquiring as to what Mark Manson likes to call, “Uncomfortable Truths”.
After continuing to become more a fuck-up in his life, no seriously there is like pages of his failures and I won’t even bother to get into it, he wrote an extremely controversial piece at the time called, “Will To Power”. One of the most important concepts in this writing was how he challenged the Utilitarian ideals that reflect how the major drive that causes people to change and grow, is the pursuit of happiness and pleasure. Freidrich argues that people instead are naturally driven by resistance, as a means to gain control and advantage. If there is no resistance in life, there is no pursuit or drive to be able to conquer a challenge a goal. Therefore, people will instead subconsciously seek roadblocks and opposition. Now whether or not you agree with that idea, there is a much more pressing concept being hidden under the words here. Why would people seek difficult times when that is the antithesis of what we know about true happiness? What is the point of desiring hardships and pain?
Side note: Freidrich eventually went insane due to syphilis, and fell unconscious trying to hug a horse in the middle of town. It’s not relevant to this at all, but it’s my website dammit and I thought it was funny.
A Love For Hope, And Growth From Pain
Pasquale Buzzelli (ain’t that the most italian name ever) had a loving wife, a good job, and a baby on the way to which they named, “Hope”. In early fall, he took to his normal routine of waking up, getting ready for work as a structural engineer, and having breakfast with his wife. He made his commute and everything was business as usual. He took the elevator up to the 68th floor to his office but suddenly everything stopped. There was a large boom, the power flickered, and the elevator dropped one floor. He made a phone call to his wife and asked her to put on the news to see what the hell just happened. The day was September 11th, 2001, and Pasquale just had a Boeing 767 hit his building at the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Pasquale and a few others managed to get out of the elevator and make their way to the stairs and attempted to get to the ground floor. He got all the way down to the 22nd floor, when the building started to shake. Very shortly after, the tower began to collapse on top of him. He threw himself into the corner of the stairwell in a fetal position, and prayed to God to take care of his wife and incoming daughter.
Pasquale got knocked unconscious by the falling debris, but then something amazing happened. Three hours later he woke up, and not to the pearly gates of heaven, but 18 floors lower in the rubble of the fallen tower he was just in. Confused and shocked, he encountered a new problem. He was now sitting on a high perch surrounded by fire and falling leftover debris. Pasquale began to look around for a sharp object so that if the fire would reach him, he would be able to end his life on his own terms instead of turning into a human well-done steak. Eventually, firefighters were able to locate and reach him before it came to that, and brought him down and gave him the medical attention he needed. In the ambulance, the first thing this man thought was to ask for a phone so he could call his pregnant wife who was watching all of this live, as she already began to grieve what she thought was the loss of her husband.
"Healing never came when I clawed in search of it, it came when I was willing to listen to the lesson the pain was here to teach me."
6 weeks later, their daughter Hope was born, and thankfully with a loving mother and father to be there with her. Years later in an interview with 60 Minutes in 2021, he was asked, “What is the most enduring feeling about that day for you?”. He replied with tears in his eyes:
“I guess right now this day, I still feel blessed, still feel very lucky, but I also still feel very sad. But I’ve learned to know how to feel okay with having survived. I don’t feel I’ve wasted the opportunity. I feel that I did what I needed to do as a father, and a husband.”
Pasquale will never forget that day he almost didn’t make it home. The effects of that pain and suffering of survivors guilt will carry with him forever. But he took that lesson of being fortunate enough to have survived, and used it to be the best man to his loving wife, and the best father to his children that he can be. He has internalized his pain, and learned from it and came out of it a more appreciative and loving person to those around him. What happened to him was not a blessing, it was a tragedy, the blessing he was talking about was the lesson that he learned from the pain of that horrible day, and he will never forget it.
An Honest Self Reflection Born From Pain
"It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace."
Part of the reason I made this blog that nobody reads is because I’ve recently been in a lot of pain. I lost someone who was very important to me who I considered my everything. This pain caused me to feel sorrow, depression, and grief to an extent to which I have never felt before. Admittedly, my life hasn’t been that difficult growing up. I had it good, which on a surface level sounds nice and all. But with the absence of pain it made me weak. This absence of true pain made me into the person I was, for better or worse. I looked at the world like an amusement park, with rides that I should be hopping into when things seem to be hopeless. The distractions of these metaphorical rides to avoid my pain did me no favors. I wasn’t growing, as I was always looking for an escape, an easy out.
When this initially happened to me, I did what any sensible person would do – run. I drank myself into oblivion. I turned on the video games and tried to forget it. I watched Netflix in bed to get my mind off things. It only really took me a week to realize that I was not getting any better, I was just getting worse. Every time my feelings of pain came back it would shout at me and say, “Look here! Aren’t I annoying!?” and I would take a sip of beer and respond back with, “Go the fuck away dude I’m not talking to you right now!”. That’s when it clicked with me. Even though I don’t have to be happy with the circumstances, I can be grateful for the lesson. So I shook that annoying little bastard’s hand and I took a good hard look at myself in the mirror and tried to really figure out who I was. What was it about myself that I didn’t like that caused me to have such a low feeling of self worth. I saw so many ugly things about myself that seemed to be seeping out of my skin. I didn’t ask myself how this could happen to me anymore, instead I asked myself “WHY am I suffering? What is the reason for this?”
I finally saw this pain as an opportunity for growth instead of a time for self indulgence. As a motivator instead of a crippler. I stopped trying to make myself feel better by reminding myself of all the reasons I think I am super dope and how I didn’t deserve this, but instead I used it to acknowledge all the reasons I am not and ways that I possibly did. Maybe I’m not as dope as I thought, and that’s okay. I was lazy, immature, insecure, weak, and lacked self awareness. For 24 years I have subscribed to the Utilitarian beliefs in the pursuit of pleasure and comfort for personal growth, and convincing myself that because I wasn’t feeling sadness, that I achieved what I was pursuing. But I didn’t achieve that, just an illusion of it. Because it was not until I felt this pain that I’ve been experiencing did I realize that there is so much room for improvement in my life. I now look forward to the incoming struggles I’m going to face. Getting that apartment soon and barely making ends meet. Finding a partner who challenges my viewpoints healthily. Getting tired from working all day. Through these, I can learn what it is really like to have more responsibility, to love someone who isn’t a reflection of myself and my beliefs, and have an appreciation for being rewarded for my hard work. These are all gifts of a minor pain, just in a new and beautiful light.
I’ve come to recognize the mistakes that I’ve made, and actively began to work on correcting them one piece at a time. No matter how innocent you think you are in your own life, there are always things that can be improved on, and wrongs that you have made. You are only a victim to the actions of others if you refuse to digest the lessons that are being told. It takes a lot for people to admit they messed up, because that would require facing the Uncomfortable Truths about yourself. I’ve discovered a newfound respect and admiration for those that suffer, and I use that knowledge to actively try and help others as much as I can. I’ve learned to let go of the anger and resentment of those I felt have wronged me, as I realized that I have equally wronged them. If you feel like someone really laid horse sized shit in your cereal, don’t hate them. Thank them for giving you a much needed disruption to your false ideation of a perfect and cushy life. Realize that there can be a rose that sprouts from horse shit.
"In years of excruciating suffering, I learned where true joy resides. God taught me that I had something valuable to be thankful for. In fact, it was the most invaluable gift a person could ever receive. And I had it not in spite of my suffering... but because of it."
Did looking at that repulsive and ugly ass font I used for the above quote make you cringe in disgust? Good! Now we are getting somewhere. What did we learn? Admittedly not much, maybe let’s not get annoyed at the small things anymore.
I’m not happy with my circumstances, but I am thankful for the lesson. Be appreciative of your suffering. Look at it and let it sit in you because it has lessons that it’s trying to scream at you. Embrace the worst times in your life with open arms, no matter how badly it hurts. Take the lessons from it, and then tell them to fuck off when you got them. Suffering and pain are not your enemy, they are friends in scary halloween costumes that just want the best for you. Convincing yourself that you are happy, without taking a moment to look in the mirror, is a disservice to yourself. Nobody is truly happy forever, just comfortable.
Think about it – those times you went on vacation to the Bahamas. Or that new girlfriend you think is way better than your last. Or that new promotion you got from work with a big pay raise. How long did that sense of happiness last until the effects of having a new experience begin to fade? Eventually we all come back down to earth and start recognizing that we aren’t as happy as we all like to think we are, we just float around a 7/10 when novelties wear off. Being too comfortable will heighten the negative feeling when the times come to be uncomfortable. Personal growth is a friend to those who face difficulties, and point the mirror at themselves instead of others. I looked at the mirror and saw laziness, and lack of drive amongst other things. So I made a stupid website, joined a gym, and started reading so I can be proud of myself for actually doing something. No matter how small it is.
The easiest thing to do in life is to run. When placed in an uncomfortable situation, fight or flight kicks in, and flight is normally the most appetizing for the two. Nothing gets absorbed from running. In most circumstances it’s almost impossible to run as feelings of despair, guilt, anger, and sadness don’t just vanish with time and distractions. When choosing to run all you do is put them in a box in the corner and hope nobody opens the lid. And when the next time there is time to face an uncomfortable situation, the box begins to open slightly, and if you run, you have to open that box first and stuff that new garbage in there until it gets full and smells like shit and you can’t close the lid anymore. It will all come out and eat at you.
It’s not good to say that you want to be a better person, but instead tell yourself you want to be the better you. And you, me, and everyone else has so much negative trash that they carry with themselves each and every day. It’s up to all of us to decide whether or not we want to self-reflect with some awareness on these issues before something terrible happens to us that forces that box we have been cramming shit into, open. Whereas if you choose to fight, even if you lose you still win. You tried, and therefore you learned. But you only learn when you acknowledge why you lost.