Stardancer News - May 1st, 2008

Comparative pain is a game no one wins.

Part of the problem is that 90% of the people in the world aren't telling. The old man sitting next to you, smiling at pictures of his grand-daughter, barely escaped a dictatorship with his life. The sweet, friendly woman you work with who seems to have it made was originally married to an abusive cop whom she had to flee on a chance weekend cross-country, chased by his buddies in the force. All the people around you... they've known death. Sickness. Suffering. Thwarted ambitions. Destroyed dreams. Loneliness. And you'd never know it from their faces.

So most of the time, you're missing data you need to play the game.

You can console yourself imagining what people are going through based on what they make public, maybe. But then, when they do share, you're suddenly forced to confront someone whose situation, objectively, must have been worse than yours. What then? You're forced to resent them for making your own feelings feel petty and small. Their experiences become nothing more than a whip you use to punish yourself for being human. You dehumanize them, turning their own suffering into something that has nothing to do with them and everything to do with you. And you scar yourself, undeserving, for you are no less entitled to your emotions than they are.

Here's the truth: there's no such thing as comparative pain. There's no game. There's no way to measure, no way to win. We all come into this life and we all suffer. Some of us choose to talk about it, and some won't, but you will never understand any person's personal hell. And with very few exceptions, you will never even know they're burning.

As the movie says: the only winning move is not to play.

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Tags: philosophy
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