GRIEF / SORROW

Any time you experience loss, you will experience grief. That is as it should be. The less that you are attached to in life, the less you will experience loss, and the less you will grieve.

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be attached to anything. By all means, hold friends and family dear to you. But being attached to pretty much anything else is not worth the grief.

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No matter how bad it is, sooner or later, it will pass. Sooner or later, depending on you.

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Much grief and sorrow in life is unnecessary: through refusing to let it go; through holding on to it, and letting everyone know that that grief, that sorrow is yours, God damn it!

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Grief and sorrow is the richest source of material for the comedian and humourist. His job is to transform it into laughter and joy: the ultimate catharsis.

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And there’s a clue right there. Nothing is inherently upsetting. Nothing. Yes, even death, disease, famine, war.

It depends, entirely, on how you choose to see it.

If you take the standpoint that all of that is wrong, then, of course, it will be upsetting.

If you take the standpoint that there is something humourous in all of that, you will find the humour in it.

Which will make the whole thing even more upsetting to some. Because, very clearly, that’s completely wrong.

And if you take the standpoint that we are eternal and immortal beings of light. That nothing can hurt or harm us, really. That whatever pain and suffering we experience is temporary. That it will all pass away soon enough.

If you take that standpoint, life – and death – occurs very, very differently.

None of which is true – but what you would choose it to be so.

© Phillip A. Klein March 2008