“No one will protect you from your own suffering.”
Artwork by Alena Willbur
“No one will protect you from your own suffering.” Cheryl Strayed, also known as “Sugar,” and also known as the brave, inspirational woman who hiked through the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995. 1,100 miles. She wrote this quote in her “tiny beautiful things” book filled with past letters written to her advice column years ago, and it spoke in a booming voice to me. I think we often look for someone or something, even God or many Gods—a higher being—to save us from that pain. And to an extent, these people and higher being might be able to, but I think what Strayed is getting at is that no one can or will be able to protect you from the suffering you carry in your soul—that deep, self-inflicting suffering.
The insecurities, the burdens weighing on your shoulders and crimpling your knees like Atlas, only we are not Titans of Titan strength. We’re only human. I guess the real question is how we can heal from all of that suffering slowly burning our soul to dust. Another quote from St. Augustine, as quoted in the Hulu adaptation of John Green’s Looking For Alaska, “I poured my soul into the dust by loving a man who was soon to die, as if he would live forever.” We can learn a great lesson within this, which is also tied to Buddhism beliefs—that desire leads to suffering, and suffering leads to desire. You see, if you really read into the core beliefs of western and eastern religions, you’ll find that there are more similarities than you’d think. And essentially, all of these lessons are of value. People look at religion as if it is bound into one train of thought, but how many religions are there in the world? Hell, I have no clue because there are at least hundreds of denominations of Christianity alone.
But I didn’t write here today to get too deep into that. I’m writing now because I think I have been suffering from my self-inflicting suffering and I’ve only recently realized the extent of it. Sometimes when you are left completely alone in a room, nothing but silence and the light pouring from your windows, you have two options: 1) to sleep so that you don’t have to live in this moment of solitude, or 2) do something, alone. Even while growing up with five siblings, I never minded being alone until I had no other option. After they died, I had to be alone because I was alone. And that is when I realized that, even if I was alone in my room, I’d never actually been alone in this world.
You can’t ignore the pierce of pure silence after the laughter and footsteps of five children disappear. I used to enjoy that quiet time when my siblings would be elsewhere—at a friend’s, a soccer game, grocery shopping with my parents—but this was different. This was permanent.
We are afraid of this silence because we cannot stand to hear our souls screaming, suffering. But you can only ignore it for so long before it demands to be heard. And, like Hazel Grace said, pain demands to be felt. And heard and seen and even tasted. Here is the thing though: if we suffer, we can also feel the opposite. (Not suffer?) Love, happiness, peace.
I cannot tell you it will get better right away, or that it will be soon, or even when it does get better that it stay that way. It won’t. But it won’t keep hurting unless you, deep down, make it that way. Everyone has a chance. The question is whether or not you’ll take it.
