The way to get through the pain of being human is not to deny it, but to experience it. To let it exist. To let it be, without stopping it up or holding it back, or in our newer, more modern forms of resistance, by claiming it isn’t “evolved” to be in pain. That’s garbage. It’s elitist. By the same token, you don’t “allow” pain so that you can go back to a normative baseline of happiness. You allow pain because it’s real. Because it is easier to allow than to resist. Because being with what is is kinder, softer, gentler, and easier to bear—even when it rips you apart. Because bearing witness
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