Truth Bomb Tuesday: Sorrow has a meaning
I’ve found that I’ve become a bit of a collector of quotes. It started as a way to break up presentations – just flick to a screen with an interesting quote on it, let it sink in, give myself a moment to have a drink and recover my breath.
But now I find I do love the distillation of a good quote – the way it takes some big idea and distils it down into a single digestible truth. It’s the process of distillation that’s interesting for me, as much as the end result.
Anyway, I’ve had this quote in my bank for a while now. I enjoy it every time I read it:
“You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.”
— Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk
But this week it brought together a few themes I’ve been wrestling with.
The central idea is something I’ve thought a lot about. That the reason why there is so much suffering in the world is so that we can fully appreciate the beauty that the world does have to offer.
Sometimes, and most times, this beauty is small and almost insignificant. It’s in the way neighbourhoods come together in crisis. It’s the small kindness to the stranger in Woolies having a bad day. It’s little acts of charity and care.
Balanced against wars and violence and the cruelty of the world, on their own they are tiny – barely pin-pricks of light.
(That said, like stars, there are a lot of them. Millions of them, every day. People are, on the whole, profoundly good. The centre-point of humanity is a balance of sincere beauty.)
But, these daily miracles are small, and we wouldn’t appreciate them at all if it weren’t for the contrast the world’s sorrows provide. We understand that helping an old ladies across the street is beautiful, because we know that violence, even to our elderly, is a thing.
We need the darkness to be able to appreciate how beautiful they are.
I like this idea.
But then there’s a couple of things that Dillard adds either side to that.
First, we don’t have to participate in star-gazing.
We don’t have to engage with the world’s darkness – not in our comfortable western lives. It’s possible, if we’re lucky, to keep our eyes buried in the sofa – to wilfully ignore the worst the world has to offer. Don’t watch the news. Curate your social feed. Pass your time with RomComs and cooking shows.
And that’s ok. For some sensitive people, this is probably the optimal life strategy. It’s valid.
All it means is that you’ll never have enough contrast to appreciate the small miracles of the world, in all their beauty.
And then the third idea, tacked on the end, is that these miracles, like the stars, don’t need witness. They will exist – the world will keep generating moments of wonder and goodness – whether you are there to watch it or not.
Beauty exists for its own sake.
There is no requirement to engage, support or even witness and record it. It’s got nothing to do with you all at.
But there is still an invitation – to be present to the world’s sorrow, and to savour those small moments of beauty where you find them.
What a beautiful distillation.
DB