About The Good the Bad and the Memory

Post 343:

            What if we could fully recall the most difficult, frustrating and heart-wrenching times in life? Sure, sounds awful, but I think it would be a superpower. To be able to snap your fingers and be in the nadirs and sinkholes of existence—this would be a gift of profound significance.

            I don’t mean you have to linger on how bad it can be or has been. Just that it would give hardcore insight to one’s current station, provide relief, offer a backdrop, give an adrenaline-like shot of reality.

            You’d constantly be dancing. Every person would be met with a hug. We’d all be in clover about 99% of the time, because it’s very rare that things are absolutely horrible.

            This is a general thing, but I want to be clear as day. Some people have had lives completely dominated by physical and psychological pain. This isn’t something most folks can identify with in the modern world. Generally, we have it pretty cozy.

            It’s a weird topic and probably a weirder way of looking in on it, but here we are. It has to do with me reading The Gulag Archipelago, pretty sure. Talk about a treatise in human suffering. I can only go through it in bursts; too much heartbreak, too much of those bad times that we try so hard to forget. Times a thousand. Multiplied by eons.

            The writer, Solzhenitsyn, is unsparing in his description of the pain. It makes him a great chronicler and a truly inspiring writer. He doesn’t shy away from all that darkness. He’s got it on tap, with extra reserves in the back. He’s a frigging memory superhero, and I bet since getting out of those hellscapes, nobody’s coffee tastes better in the morning. Nobody can write about the good stuff like this guy. He’s not shy about reality. And the truth, as much as we’d like to run from it, is always the best long-term solution. Infuse it in your characters and in your life, and it’ll serve you. May not always be happy hour, but what the hell—honestly, happy hour always seemed kind of douchy anyway.

            Don’t look back in anger. But look all the same. See you after.