Inner peace did not use to be a goal of mine. Peace, I felt, was where art came to
die. Tranquility and zen were the
abysses of creativity. Yogis were
boring, breathing nothing but stale air in and out of their all- too still
bodies.
I think we have this idea in our culture that pain is beauty—that
suffering prepares the foundation from which art grows. But sappy love ballads alone do not a rich
culture make. It is true that some of
our best and brightest minds have suffered from depression, anxiety, bipolar
disease and the like; plagued with mental illness their poetry, their aesthetic
beauty sprang from these denser wells.
But many of our greatest artists were far more optimistic than our
romanticized cultural notion of art would have us believe. One only need listen to The Beatles, The
Beach Boys, or Bob Marley to remember this.
So why do we value, prioritize, and even idolize suffering? Is it a way for us to keep ourselves stuck,
endlessly turning inwards instead of looking out at the ordinary beauty of life’s
day to day? I do think suffering can be
beautiful. I think suffering, when truly felt, is stunning—not because it is
sad, but because it is true, and its truth shines so brightly as to illuminate
something new about humanity. But by
extolling suffering we lower our cultural threshold for pain. In our current culture, suffering can and is
felt for the most minute of disappointments, and complaining ensues because it
has become expected. This kind of
suffering is not beautiful because it is dishonest; like a thick wool sweater
in mid- spring it is an overreaction to the natural elements. It lays heavy on our skin in itchy
discomfort, shielding us from those necessary, if pale rays of sunlight. I bring up our culture’s relationship to
suffering in an effort to better understand my own.
My attachment to suffering, was I think, a tendency that sprang out of fear—fear that if I let go of that suffering, life might not be as beautiful as it was in my imagination. Life might disappoint. The opposite has proved true. The more I loosen my grasp on suffering, the more life shows its beauty. The more risks I take in allowing life to disappoint, the more it excites, the more it breathes life back into me, and the more risks it encourages me to take in return.
I am curious to know what others' perceptions are of suffering, and if they felt attached at some point in their lives to it or not, if they have stepped out of that attachment, and how our practice of yoga encourages us to do so.
Thoughts?
