When someone hurts us we think we are the only one hurting. What if they are too?
I understand that the last thing we want to do when hurting is think from the offender’s perspective, but irrespective of our thoughts, another story is always unfolding within the one we are feeling.
Let me concretize this in a moment.
When you go through a breakup of whatever form be it romantic, friendship, formal or informal. Regardless of who instigated it, there is usually a feeling for the one who decided to leave first and the one who was left behind to deal with the decision of the other. Essentially, both of them are travelling through the same pain but from opposing angles.
I remember as I cried, I watched him cry too but we were not crying for the same reasons despite crying for the same reasons. This memory of mine is what expanded this idea in my mind. It is funny how the mind records events… I know I was focused on my own pain but I could see it mirrored in the person who caused the pain in the first place.
Have you thought that a killer also feels the pain of killing? what made such person pull the trigger? How much pain did they need to release in themselves that they felt they just had to get out?
Imagine that the family of the deceased seated at the front row of the court room and the family of the convict are members of the same pain, the pain is unifying but one that they would experience distinctively.
Someone said “it is like telling the bad side of a good story”
Psychologically, it is easier to highlight our pain, magnify our complexities, minimize our weaknesses, and forgive our faults but when the fault is from another, especially the ones we love, we find it a lot harder to overlook their imperfections simply because they have failed to meet the expectations we have or the box we want them to occupy.
Even virtue produces a form of suffering. There is pain in discipline and pain in indiscipline. As humans we are wired to be pain avoidant, to see suffering as the ultimate ill, especially suffering in the body. This is true to a certain extent but the presence of pain is much more than the indication of discomfort or anomaly, it is also an instructor of what needs to change. It may be the first line in the blueprint for growth but I digress.
This conversation is about understanding humanity through the pain we feel, give, and receive. I am not sure I am capable of dissecting this into smaller bits, nor do I want to because this will mean different things to different people but maybe it will be easier to forgive ourselves and others when we can understand that pain is not only a mutation but mutable.
As we emote, it is important to remember that there is a parallel universe outside our emotions that we may never touch but it’s there nonetheless, it is like the viewpoint in the movie stranger things. It is necessary to remember that we are incapable of all the nuances and must make room to acknowledge that gap.
If we can rationalize this, maybe we can understand that our humanity is the same. We are hurt, just as we hurt others. You are a villain in the story of another no matter how inadvertent the act or omission.
Pain is a two way street, no one goes unscathed. That is enough punishment and consolation at once.
As an empath, thinking this way may become problematic without a note of caution. This does not mean one should be so understanding that one can barely register their own pain but can relate to the offender’s own. No, it means knowing that even when you are hurting it does not mean the other is free. They may not be hurting in the same way you are but they are also participating in the pain somehow.
The need for vengeance may be minimised with this ideal, but I am not trying to change the world, just seeking to replace ineffective ideologies with perspective.
So maybe now, someone can finally let go.
Stay giddy folks, life is beautiful.
Connoisseur of Memories 