BitterSweetLife

The Certainty of Pain


Well, back to the Manifesto. In a sense, this third point completes the "syllogism" I've been building, implementing an equation for bittersweet living. (More points are really unecessary; fewer would leave the equation incomplete.) I'm not discounting additonal discussion, but everything essential is here. In its essence, BitterSweetness is a principle as simple as it is revealing. So without more ado, here we go.

(If you haven't read the first couple "articles," go here first. Otherwise, read on, brave traveler.)

::3: Study suffering.
Article 2 covered the Sweet. Now we turn to the Bitter. On first glance, it might seem that my generation has this one covered. Among us you'll find professing "realists," non-confessing pessimists, and chronic gripers (not to mention habitual whiners). But despite all this, we fundamentally fail to really deal with suffering. Perhaps our relationship with it is too shallow. Perhaps we ask the wrong questions. At any rate, the answers that we often give—"Life sucks," "‘Things’ will get better," a muttered "I hear you," an awkward silence—are clearly inadequate.

We hover between bleak depression and naive optimism. At the very least, this Bitter side of life deserves an honest examination. What are we to make of "meaningless" pain? Why does distress so often infringe on joy? And conversely, how shall we explain joy's strange "intrusions" into heartache? Strangely, the two aren't often separate, and BitterSweetness inevitably appears.

Well, there it is... I leave you with a triune approach to a bittersweet life: