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Monday, March 17th, 2008
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6:39p - Fold your hands, child and stay silent
More learnings from this highly caustic life:
When someone tells you he is in pain, that someone isn't always looking for counsel. Or a pep talk. There are instances when all that someone needs you to do is to agree with him about how horrible, tragic, or utterly lonely that thing that just happened to him is. Humans need other humans to validate their pain. Not so the pain becomes twice as real, but so that their humanity becomes more pronounced, more palpable. In that moment, the person in pain isn't looking for comfort (yet) so much as for someone who will sit with him as he studies his pain and masters its contours and colors and flavors.
It's not an easy thing to do, sit quietly beside someone who is hurting. But at this point, all that is being asked of you is to be patient. Eventually, your wounded pal will have had enough of his pain, whose entirety he has stared at and pondered for a considerable time. Eventually, he will remember chocolate, or sex, or a warm bath and fresh towels after a long day, and realize that the pain he has been focusing all his energy on is really quite a drag. When he does, he's going to need someone to hold hands and skip down the road with while whistling a happy tune. That's your reward for sitting quietly and not marking time. You get to share in that feeling of renewal.
current mood: woozy
current music: rush hour traffic (5 comments |comment on this)
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