When I was young, I used to go fishing to the lake with Jojo on Sundays. Everyone, including the doctors, engineers, and Mister said that there were no fishes in the lake. The water is too contaminated for the fishes to survive. But we still liked to spend our Sundays fishing around. We had all sorts of fantasies about the other side of the lake. We used to imagine the kind of world that would exist across the other side. The people, how they lived, what they did, how they did it. But every one told us to quit visiting the lake. They said that there are no fishes in the lake so it’s useless to go there. All this useless talk had made us very sad. So, one day we put dead fishes in our rods and hung them down the lake to prove that there were fishes in the lake. And just when we planned to pull the rod out and make a big fake fuss about it, Mister arrived to take us back home. "Still looking for fishes", he smiled. "Just wait and see, we will at least catch a dozen fishes
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I just skimmed through your blog, brilliant writing!
:)
>> no heart has ever "suffered" when it goes in search of its dream.
umm.. i agree with the expressed sentiment. however, i believe this statement can be considered absolutely true only if "suffering" is defined as hardship/pain/challenges/abuse/betrayal/loss of material/loss of health etc. encountered when a person strays from their dreams.
in this sense the argument is circular. from the perspective of a neutral observer such a person probably appears sadistic. no?
Khany, this quote struck me in a very specific frame of mind. From what i think, it refers to the fact that when you set out to find answers, the journey is worth it, even if the answers aren't. When we follow our dreams, there are no guarantees, but we would rather not be on any other path than the one that leads us to them.
& hence, no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dream.
but i also realize that on any journey, and specially along this journey, there are difficulties, challenges, sacrifices, etc. usually we refer to these experiences as suffering; do we not?
let me put it this way. my gut feeling is that if ask a university student about their student experience most likely they will tell you it is a tremendous suffering. ask them a few years (or better yet a few decades) later and they will probably recall those years as amongst the best they have lived.
the only way i can reconcile these paradoxical descriptions, which i believe are both completely honest, is if i (re)define suffering as the quotation suggests:
suffering is the hardship experienced on a journey that does lead to realized dreams nor to lessons learned.
... but then i ask you is there any hardship except that we come out of it having learned a lesson?
Its like what my mother told me when i was a kid... she said that we put 'matti ke bartan' in a heated chamber to make them strong to explain to me why we have to suffer so many difficulties in life. She said that the pot doesn't get it, but its something that has to happen to it.
Like when in the Alchemist, the guy travels all the way to another part of the world and finds out that the treasure was right under the tree of the place he used to live. We could match it with an irony, or we could perceive it as an experience that opened his mind to a different dimension. If he had found the treasure earlier, he wouldn't have seen life that way. I often wonder that the experience was far more worth it than the treasure itself.
My point is, that we think that we may have suffered a lot, but at some point, we don't regret having those experiences. I admit that things don't make sense all the time, but it doesn't mean that the suffering is not worth it. God has a plan for everyone, so in that context, i think that the sufferings are there for a reason, and in the same context i think that no heart suffers when it goes out for the search of its dream.