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I don't like pain. I've spent much of my life trying to avoid pain, reduce pain, mitigate pain.
Many hours have been wasted on efforts to distract, ignore, escape, and numb.
But lately I'm accepting that it can't be avoided. Pain will always be with me—us—in one form or another. Loss, grief, wounds from family, betrayal by friends, sickness, misunderstanding, the whole world one great glorious minefield for pain.
And pain is also often an indicator, a teacher, a directional arrow. (Not always. Sometimes it is a terrible guide.) But I ignore its lessons at my peril!
So. How then do I live so as not to be crushed?
Perhaps: us.
We're going to hurt, so let us hurt in community. Not to swim in the muck of self-pity, wallowing as perpetual victims unable to escape the morass of circumstance, but as co-sufferers whose companionship gives hope. We lament together and hurt together and its really awful but then I dry your tears and you dry mine and there's strength in your eyes and in my words and we dust off and link arms and stumble forward.
Dec 15, 2024
Related Recs
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I’ve always had this fascination to emotion as a concept. Of course because everyone feels it every day of their life, but more of how encapsulating it can be. I watch films and hear stories and listen to songs and I come to find myself jealous?
Jealous of how pure and raw others experiences are. Why can’t I feel the agony of losing someone, why can’t I feel the devastation of a death, why can’t I lose a friend. It sounds so starkly idiotic because why would anyone want to feel such devastating things, and I’ve asked myself this a lot, part of me thinks it’ll draw more stories to tell in my life, but I think the truth of the matter is that to live is to feel. And I really want to live my life for all that it can bring me.
I write all this not to distract myself from the reality that I have in fact felt such great pain in my life. However, I always lust for more. This also feels like such a blatant explanation for my love of movies, I always feel so drawn into my love for film for it’s ability to snatch my mind away from my life and place it into another’s. My favourite films are those that have made me cry, because as painful as it is I just can’t help but love it. My favourite film is common knowledge but Call Me by Your Name draws me into such a chokehold each time I watch it because of the devastation I feel upon every watch. I never rewatch films but with it I can’t help it, because it always and forever will make me catatonic.
Anyways, I am leaving my point, my point is I am currently in a swarm of emotions from my own life and it is everything I have prayed and asked for while also not being it at all. I feel such an irresistible compulsion to break down and cry, and then I do, but I find myself listening to music and reading texts that only encourage and swell the emotional climax of these tears. In moments where I find myself urged to move on for the betterment of my day, all I can help but think about is someone I care so deeply for moving away. However, is it immature to want to move on? Why must I shun myself from these emotions. After all despite how painful it is, I find myself searching for this pain again and again.
Because to yearn is to be in pain, and to be in pain is to feel, and to feel is to live.
Mar 3, 2025
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there’s something strange about the headAche that follows a good cry. it lingers. an aching reminder that the tEars were real. that the sadness was deep. the thrObbing in my temPles feels like a weight. but also a strange clarity. when everything seems blurred and raw. the mind is sharp in a way it’s neVer been before. it’s as though the heart and tHe mind have found a rhythm together. a rhythm that only comes with the quiet aftermath of pain.
it’s during this vulnerability - when tHe world feels heavy and silent that creativity flows best. when sadness wears away the surface - the soul has space to create without barriers. there’s honesty in it, a kind of bruTal truth that can only emerge from the deepest emotions. the ache. thouGh painful. clears the path for something new to emErge. it’s almost as if the sorrow is the soil for growth, and from it, idEas sprout and twist.
but i kNow that this isn’t forever. the headache will fade, and with it, the weight of tears. what once felt overWhelming will soften. moments are just the prelude to something better. the clouds will break. there will be space for the light to return.
Feb 22, 2025
“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.“ - Pema Chödrön
I’ve just lived one of the hardest years of my life. There were many days that I cried or felt numb or found myself praying to an interventionist god I do not believe in. In short, things have sucked.
But there are also good days. Days with a lot of laughter with friends, or cuddles from my cats, or some new piece of art that heals me. It’s not all bad, just as it will never be all good.You have to make peace with this fact because there is no other choice. You don’t have to be happy about all of it, but make peace. Experience all that life has to offer and it will transform you.
“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
Dec 5, 2024
Top Recs from @mattshawsome
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this is worthy of celebration: the lack of video—autoplay video, noisy inane video, panicky video, algorithmic, dumb video, rabbit hole video, any video—on pi.fyi is a good thing
Oct 5, 2024
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this is going to hurt — A LOT — but it's getting to the point where there's no other option
2d ago
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one of my 2025 habit goals
alone or with others, it is the best
Jan 21, 2025