An essay response to the question posed in John Green's Looking for Alaska.
"But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."
- John Green
Life is like a never ending stretch of road. Sometimes we speed down it and sometimes we move at a snail’s pace. Everyone’s road is a different length, and circumstances can cut the road short, but this road takes us along a path of self-discovery until we die. Along the way, we face challenges, meet new people – some who we take with us and some who are best for a brief encounter – until finally your two seater car has to be swapped for a bus to carry your baggage and your companions. But this stretch of road isn’t always straight, it winds and sometimes you meet a roadblock which means you have to back track and start again. Life is all about trying to navigate the route of life, which has winded itself into a labyrinth that tries to lead you down roads flooded with negativity. The biggest challenge is leaving the labyrinth of suffering and entering the lengthy cruise down the motorway of bliss. Many people never figure out how, and some – like myself – dedicate their lives to trying to find the right exit to take.
The labyrinth of suffering is alluring. It has a mysterious quality that pulls on the soul, but once you have been drawn in it is almost impossible to leave. No matter how much you fight, the darkness is harrowing and it sucks your strength from the very marrow of your bones. The labyrinth of suffering sucks almost everyone in, in such a way that means it feels normal to live in the labyrinth. For a while, you remember what it was like before you entered and you have something to fight for. But, at some point, the lines begin to blur and you wonder if you’ve lived here your whole life; as if your whole existence is trapped in a tomb of traffic, allowing you to be killed by your own demons and by the threat of those around you. No longer are you driving through life, but you are on permanent, unmotivated cruise control and the ease makes life bearable. That becomes enough. You look for a way to keep surviving instead living. So the question that people begin to ask is, is there a way out of the labyrinth of suffering or are we all doomed to succumb to it?
Suffering is only exacerbated by the events that happen around us. I believe that suffering originates from within, buried deep within the confines of our own beings and, as we explore ourselves, we unravel our hidden suffering. As we encounter experiences and people in our lives, we are put in positions by others that cause more suffering to enter our journey. While other people can cause you pain, they cannot feel your pain. The labyrinth of suffering is something we all have the capacity to be lost in, but everyone’s labyrinth is not the same, the way everyone’s life and personalities are not the same. The labyrinth of suffering is a personalised hell, manufactured by your own mind to keep you prisoner. It’s sly and devious. Sometimes you can enter the labyrinth without realising, but you quickly become frightfully aware that you are stuck there. You cannot ignore suffering the way you can become complacent in joy. Maybe that’s why it’s a labyrinth, you become so captivated within it that you are oblivious to what is happening away from your own suffering. It is not malicious ignorance to other people, or other potentials, as much as it is about the amount of energy it takes to keep moving forward when you are constantly met with the resistance that is suffering.
Maybe the labyrinth isn’t something to leave as much as it is something to embrace. If I can live alongside my suffering then I can learn to control it, instead of letting it control me. I get the control back into my life. After all, the labyrinth of suffering is built off the fact that we all resign ourselves to suffer alone. The way to get out of the labyrinth may not necessarily be finding an exit. The metaphoric exit to the metaphorical labyrinth might be finding a palpable person to reveal the extent of your suffering to.
The thing that gives the labyrinth of suffering power is that it isolates us in our pain. Therefore, by sharing with another person and/or other people the reality of personal suffering, it may open a doorway to allow shared experience to build our strength against the confines of suffering in and of itself. There is only so much strength that can be pulled from the depths of a single person. Multiple people, that may be two people or thousands of people all stood together at a concert, contribute to a larger pool of strength that you can collectively call upon to tame suffering.
I don’t think the labyrinth of suffering has an exit. I think the entrance closes off once you go through it, and you are forever destined to live within the labyrinth. It is the way that we fight back against the labyrinth that proves the person that we each are at the core of our being. The labyrinth of suffering presents challenges that shape us. Sometimes we have to face the same challenge over and over again in order to find the path to who we are meant to be. Even within the labyrinth, there are moments of reprieve. Where the sun beams through the clouds for a moment and, briefly, the suffering of everyday life is background noise to the euphoria of being bathed is light. How we face every moment contributes to who we are. The labyrinth of suffering is necessary to forever teach us lessons that help us progress in life. Up until our last breath we are forever evolving, changing and facing challenges.
The truth is, I think I have been in the labyrinth of suffering my whole life. Sometimes, the shadows have a stronger hold on me than others. Sometimes that means that entire nights feel like they last for years, where I feel like I can’t get out of bed or pay attention to what is happening around me in the world. The challenges and the suffering that the labyrinth has supplied me with have changed as I have navigated new roads of it, and sometimes I revisit roads already travelled. I will be exploring new and old routes until I die, and maybe the large expanse of road known as life is the very thing fashioned into the labyrinth of suffering.
Suffering allows perspective on the good, and builds character in dark times. It also has presented me with my own limits. Sometimes suffering is a solitary experience, but there is a point where it becomes so much larger than myself. People who I surround myself with are the ones that take the wheel and steer me through life when I need time to recuperate from the battering of the labyrinth. I have learnt that it is okay to ask other people for help, and I'm learning more everyday, but I also have to choose carefully the people who I allow to enter my labyrinth. After all, they do have their own.
While we don’t have complete control over the labyrinth of suffering, we can choose whether we keep fighting our way through it or come to a standstill. The labyrinth of suffering is necessary, we are born into it and the only true exit is permanent, but it doesn’t have to rule our lives. The labyrinth may be our whole life, but that doesn’t mean that our life has to be lived on the terms of the labyrinth alone. We still steer the car along the road, we still choose to place one foot in front of the other, and we still choose the people and experiences we wish to take with us alone the way. The labyrinth is confusing, it’s full of winding routes, but it keeps us alive.
There is no way to stay alive and exit the labyrinth of suffering. However, I do not plan to become a prisoner of the labyrinth. I am the one who hold the power, and I am far more than my labyrinth. I don’t claim to know everything I am, I never will because I never will know. But I am not defined by my suffering any more than I am defined by the colour of my hair. The labyrinth of suffering will forever aid in shaping me and the person I will grow to be, but the people around me will always help me through the darkest corners; I will forever help myself.
Nobody can leave the labyrinth of suffering, and I don’t wish to. I thrive in my labyrinth, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
The labyrinth is life. Suffering is inevitable. It is how we deal with what the labyrinth throws at us far more than the labyrinth itself that matters.
Your stage is waiting.
Hollie
Comments