On Suffering, Meaning, and the Path to Paradise
I often wonder how I should begin when writing to a stranger.
So much of what makes our lived experience so deep is in the stories that we carry with us, whether our own or that of others.
And so much of what makes conversation so meaningful is in the willingness of someone else to hear our story. When someone attends to us, they bring us into being. We come alive in the warmth of their gaze.
We are known.
Not just in the way that we know ourselves—but in a way that makes us real beyond our own experience. Because someone is choosing to make us a part of their world. And there, we get to live on as part of something that must be more than us.
When someone pays attention to us, we are given the fortunate opportunity to transcend ourselves, and our own little world.
When writing to a stranger, I often wonder about who’s on the other side.
Do I make them feel alive?
And while I don’t know you—and I suppose we don’t know each other—I do know that we have both known suffering in life. This I can be sure of.
And perhaps that tells us more about each other than we may think. And in that way, we’re not entirely strangers, are we?
A Gift in Disguise
I wish that I could keep you from suffering. Or rather, keep suffering from you. It would be my wish that you would never have to know pain again, for as long as you’d live.
But it seems this isn’t possible for the time being. And nor am I sure that it would be entirely desirable, if it were. At least not in the way that we think.
It may be the case that suffering is a necessary evil in some capacity. Or perhaps that there’s no telling what greater evil might otherwise await in its absence. In either case, we can’t seem to deny the reality of our suffering—not the least of which our own.
And what are we to do then? In the face of pain that is so real?
For what it’s worth, I can offer you my intuitions on the matter.
I’ve been wrestling with this thought as of late, that maybe in some cosmic act of good, we are allowed to suffer if but for a chance at paradise. That maybe suffering is the only path to the highest heaven. And without it, we would be cut off from that high place too.
That perhaps the highest good is not attainable outside of the freedom to choose so for yourself. And that freedom cannot be without suffering. Because to choose to do or be anything is necessarily done so at the cost of not just anything—but everything else.
Maybe suffering is the result of us having been given the terrifying opportunity to have a hand in shaping our own destiny—and to do so responsibly or at our own peril. Perhaps the only heaven worth striving for is not illuminated by the light of heaven, but by the fires of hell. A thought that at the time of writing, feels beyond me in some way. As though its true depth lies beneath the simple truth it’s masquerading to be.
As an aside, this is an important practice I’ve cultivated—to sense when you are in the presence of something deep, and not be so quick in needing to understand it, or thinking that you have already. But to allow something to come into being in its own right, unfettered by your own premature occupations about what it should be, or mean.
That aside, I mean to say that perhaps we are afforded the opportunity to suffer—and in so doing claim our place at the king’s table. And anything less than that chance might not be worth the trouble of existence at all.
My Gift to You
While I cannot make it so that you will never suffer, I can do my part in ensuring that you might suffer meaningfully. While I’m not privy to the particular nuances of your life and story, I am devoted to helping you make both of those your own.
You hardly need any more information, to that end. And nor is that hard to come by these days.
Instead, what I can offer you is my perspective. Perhaps not always truths to be believed—or even the way I see the world.
But the world I see.
And if this can in some small way be meaningful to you, then I will be glad.
I wish you the very best,
— David Kennedy