Tragedy and triumph seem to go hand in hand.
Past pain could be paralysing yet addictive.
Those who couldn’t get over it end up going back to it.
Not for the broken experience but for the context where pain first occurred. When shattered, we threw the baby out with the bath water. In coming back, with time and distance in between, we can salvage the damage tragedy had destroyed.
Since “baby” and “bath water” were together, we always end up with both.
Stimuli and response again. Painful again. Bitter pills to swallow.
I remember my first trip back to Fateful Beach (see other blog).
Later, a few more times, I could swim, play in the sand and regain that childlike feelings.
Pain of the past never remains in the past or at the place it first occurred. It stays and grows with us. Becomes part of us. We are all walking depositories of both pain and pleasure (ask our parents how we did come about). When our brain forgets part of past pain, it’s good amnesia.
So fear not the swim up river. There might still be ambush. There might be not.
Chances for accident and mishaps to happen twice to someone at the same place is almost nil.
But in that far corner of our head recedes that creeping fear of past tragedy. Call it Post traumatic Stress Disorder.
So we close its door, and throw away the key.
But it’s there, growing. gaining weight on its own. A stranger within, waiting to be met, to be friended with. To be at peace with .
It’s natural and healthy for Black Swan and White one to co-exist.
As long as the duality makes us strong and not weakens us.
It’s part of life. Pain (past and future) that is.
Thang Nguyen 555 