InsaneJournal

Current mood:	evil
Current music:	Blue Man Group - Rods and Cones
Entry tags:	good and evil, lucifer, personal reflection

On Suffering


I have said it before, and I will say it a thousand times more before I die: I don't believe in the inherent nobility of suffering. I don't believe that bad things happen to us for any greater purpose. I don't think that obstacles are placed in our path just so that we can learn from them, like lessons in some cosmic schoolbook. I think these things just are. They just happen.

Yet I do believe that learning from the obstacles we face is the only way we can give suffering meaning. When trouble besets us, when the world seems set against us, it's up to us to fashion something meaningful out of it. Otherwise our travail is only meaningful as something to be mourned or pitied. Life doesn't offer much, except to the luckiest. You really have to take what you can, when you can. And I do. I will.

The idea that we must create our own meaning in life is, ultimately, a comforting thought to me. It means I am responsible for my own fate, but it also means that I'm not held down or hemmed in by any rules whatsoever. I'm not playing anyone else's game. I'm not a pawn on the chessboard of life. I will succeed or fail on my own merit. I fear failure, yes, but at least I am nobody's buttmonkey.

You hear that, Lucifer? I am not your buttmonkey. You may have the upper hand for now, but tread carefully. Even demons take falls, don't they?