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The Beauty of Shared Pain
If it takes hurt to unite us, then let us be hurt.
In the wake of a national tragedy, following some badness that cannot be undone, and that affects each of us, there is a beautiful occurrence. Today, I can look round at the houses in my neighborhood, and know that in each one of them decent people feel what I am feeling, and should our eyes meet, there will be an unspoken significance to it, through our mutual awareness that we understand one another’s pain.
From the cashier at the store to the drivers on the road, I will know that we feel today as a collective, as one force united in our antipathy to the outrageous desecration we were each of us forced to witness. Our values stand today as a thing more palpable than they were just the day before. Like one who doesn’t appreciate life until they see it at risk of being taken from them, we can now all the more appreciate what we have in civility, decency, and democracy.
There is nothing good about the storming of the hallowed halls of Congress that occurred on January 6th, 2021, but each and every one us was affected in someway, and that shared pain will heal into a shared hope, and a renewed sense that there is indeed something here worth preserving.
Martin Vidal is the author of The Ambition Handbook: A Guide for Ambitious Persons
