We all suffer alone

Suffering. And Alone. A verb and an adjective combining to form a devastating truth of life.

To be alive, is to oscillate between suffering or misery and happiness. It’s at the core of our purpose, or as some philosophers will have you believe anyway. Core or not, suffering is unavoidable.

One would tend to believe, that for something which is unavoidable and forms a big part of our existence, humanity would have found a systematic way to deal with it. To manage or cope with it.

Sure, coping mechanisms do exist and the ones that currently prevail include availing support from family and friends, or talking to a psychiatrist, or drowning oneself in the bottle, so on and so forth. However, all support mechanisms provide relief in part to the sufferer or the situation, but they don’t take away the suffering in its entirety. Can a family or support group eradicate the pain or eventual loss of everything for a cancer patient or their family? While a night out with friends can help forget the pain of a broken heart, the healing however, happens over time and on its own.

Suffering is an experience to be dealt with alone.

One finds himself curled up in the middle of an infinite chamber filled with darkness. And the light within oneself needs to be discovered and brought out to scamper away the darkness and find another reason for happiness & joy; another reason to live.

Until then, we suffer alone.

A quiet scream in a noisy world

The world (Internet) right now is filled with twitter threads, substack or twitter or the latest newsletters, podcasts, articles, listicles, longreads, short bursts (tweets) and whatnots. And that’s just text. Enter the world of video and there’s everything from youtube videos to trending reels/ tiktoks (depending on what part of the world you live in at the moment), whatsapp forwards, facebook videos and more. And then, there are memes. (My favorite form of communication)

There’s so much being said. So much being opined. So much being lost.

That’s not my intention – to add to the noise. No opinions, No deep philosophical or moral commentaries or motivational stories of some struggler who’s made it big. My intention here is to block out all the chaos and the noise and just talk about one thing.

My Mom.

2021

About two months ago we discovered that her cancer has come back. Stage 4 this time with literally no solution or palliative relief available with modern science. We’ve been told to just ‘make the most of the time left’. And this event has helped create absolute clarity in life.

I don’t want to write more about her at the moment. Neither do I have anything profound to offer.

I just wanted to shout out alone on the top of a mountain without anyone being able to hear me. This is me doing just that.