One answer to the question that closes my previous post comes in the colloquial reassurance that pain is a prod to grow. Perhaps, but I think instrumentalizing pain is disrespectful to a moment’s suffering and, more importantly, to the sufferer whose tears must then stream into a larger teleology. The grander scheme, the divine plan, the inevitable growth does not comfort but robs suffering’s immediate weight only to replace it with the larger burden of a predetermined future. One can no longer suffer in peace. They must stand, however shakily, and live in a future that has colonized the present.

One can, however, grow by living fully in painful moments without flinching and looking ahead to its absence. Here too the future lives, but without predetermination. The future comes as the present’s servant, bowing to its master and listening carefully to his muddled instructions. He orders two opposites in one breath, tries to seduce the servant before prostrating shamefully. Suddenly, he speaks clearly and announces, “my deepest desire is for ethical clarity,” before collapsing pitifully on the floor. The future notes these words and leaves the sufferer.

The past, present’s tyrannous unbending father, arrives and proceeds to beat the shit out of his son, taking care to strike harder unhealed cuts.


Oh purple prose, how I … thee