Beaten and unforgiving

Today, my daughter fell hard onto the frozen ground at daycare and split her lip on her teeth badly. While they couldn't put stitches in and she is feeling a fair bit of pain, she will recover just fine in time. She has been through a lot in her nearly four years and has had more needles and tests than most will have in a lifetime and no matter how scared she is at the doctor's office and while she has her moments at home, she is one of those kids that takes the stiff upper lip approach and digs herself in.

I have always been in awe of how she faces some of these things that adults seem to struggle with. When she was born and spent the first couple weeks in intensive care, she had to have a lot of tests performed and while she cried like any newborn, I have always wondered if that kind of start to life would have an effect on her later in life and whether she would be stronger for it, or weaker because of it. The answer is impossible to know, but I am guessing that all life experiences have an effect on all future experiences, whether we remember them happening or not.

I often think about the effects I have on my daughter and whether I do her harm or help her be more capable of living a good life. What is a good life? Well, I think that is part of the journey of life itself - the quest to discover what a good life actually is. I think a lot of people outsource this journey to the crowd or a doctrine in a book so they don't actually have to walk the path themselves.

I believe that while the path of discovery is filled with experiences, relationships and people of all kind, ultimately it is a path walked alone. The idea of "we all die alone" hints at this, but what many deny is that we also all live alone. We live in our own constructs that we have created based on what we learn and what we believe and to each, this universe is unique, a sliver of perspective that none other can truly see, as none other can stand in our shoes, let alone walk in them.

The idea that we can take someone else's perspective is folly, but many seem to think it is possible without recognizing the potentially large degrees of error, even though the feeling of accuracy is absolute. "I know how you feel" is a senseless thing to say, even when it comes from the heart with the best of intentions - as is "I can see it from your perspective".

Yet, it is the attempt to understand the position of others that helps to build the social glue in a community and the sense that there is overlap in who we are as people. Perhaps it is something like universes colliding to create a massive series of reactions and combinations of events that will forever change the patterns of each. I figure that this is why relationships are so important, and why healthy relationships lead to paths of strength and development, and unhealthy lead to weakness and decay.

I think that many of the negatives in life are unavoidable, but it is how we as individuals face them and understand them that makes the difference. Two people facing similar events can be polar opposites in reaction, one harmed, the other empowered by the experience. What I find online is that many engineer their experience to avoid what they believe harms them, without recognizing that it might be the very thing they need to be their best.

We love comfort the comfort zones of our own universe, but spend too long standing still and eventually they become black holes that suck in potential experiences and take the light out of living. Many wonder what comes after death, without questioning if they are living a life.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]