Why is life full of pain? Is pain the essential attribute that underscores our existence? It is often said that those who live must appreciate living with pain so that they get to know the value of happiness. Is then pain essential for survival. Life is not fair, and is not meant to be fair, is it then true that some of us get more than our fair share of pain and suffering while others relatively have a cake walk. Let us examine this in detail.

I switch on the news and see how much suffering the world is going through. The mal-nourished children in Yemen, the immense suffering of children in Syria, the unrest in major countries like Hong Kong, Myanmar, the countries of the African Union, refugees fleeing their homes, bomb-blasts in Afghanistan, and what not. The entire world seems to be suffering. It pains me to observe what fault has been committed by these innocent civilians who have to go through hell to just survive.

And the point is that even though these people escape their source of suffering, suffering and pain never leaves them, it is like being consumed by a black hole from which nothing can escape. The lost peace, the lost loved-ones, the pain of physical wounds and mental scars for life, the very act of living becomes a burden for such people. And for the people who are not touched by such sufferings, there is a different battle altogether.

These people have to undergo torture and conflicts in their own hearts and minds because they are not being able to fathom what kind of compromises they have made with their lives to get to live in relative stability. The kind of regimented and mechanized life that they are leading, slaves to their own conscience that is being mauled everyday, where sleep only comes through pills and peace only comes through self-compromise, and yet people are devoid of peace because there is none, no matter how hard they try.

The poor are living under immense pressure to survive economic hardships, the rich are fighting an altogether different battle of staying relevant in the equation of life to gather some meaning from their listless existence, workers are not happy and the ruling class is becoming cruel day by day, losing the values of humanity that gives them the authority to rule. Governments are being iron-fisted to stem out any opposition and we are used to live under a mirage of democracy where there is none. Reality is democracy cannot survive in such conditions, the world is not democratic anymore, and I don’t get it, who is in-charge of this mad rush?

Whatever sensitivities we have left in us and whatever feelings we may have left preserved in us due to the numbness and pain that is all around us makes us wonder what we are escaping. We are in conflict with our own selves, peace cannot descend in any of our lives because we are at a constant war with our souls, both individual and collective.

So what is the way out of this mess? Healing is required. Healing is required at all levels. We need to heal ourselves and others, people around us. We need to ask hard questions, and seek answers. We need to overthrow the artificiality that has engulfed us and our lives and learn to feel and heal again. When you don’t even find your wounds that bleed, how can you heal them. So we need to acknowledge that we are wounded, that whatever is oozing from the battle scarred bodies and minds is blood of our crushed desires and happy moments that seemed quite natural for us to have, but we have been devoid from them due to the fraud that all of us have been subjected to.

We need to be optimistic in such dark times. We need to hold on to whatever makes us alive and then being to heal ourselves and others around us. The system is not at fault. The system is faulty, and the most critical nature of this ailment is our acceptance of this system. There are no governments to overthrow and no revolutions to usher in. What we need is a change in our perception, the rest will automatically follow.

Let us all join our hands in the pursuit of this healing. Let us all vow to be alive again. Let us all live again and live in the true sense, what we are supposed to be, not to be slaves of some dark and evil arrangement that has destroyed our lives. Let us heal one person at a time, and the change will follow soon. Let us all hope for the best.