I just got news that someone from my office in Singapore jumped off the building in suicide today. As I was telling another colleague about it, I was a little saddened by her response. That it must have taken the person a lot of 'courage' to do it, and that it must be bad for the company since he jumped off in the company's premises.
It made me wonder how desentisized are we to the pains of the world that we do not experience firsthand of? It makes me wonder how much effort do we actually put to be desentisized with pain?
Some of us try to immerse in distractions so they can ignore pain, some wallow in self-pity, some simply won't speak of it as if speaking it gives it life, some speak of it too much in hopes that sharing it lessens its burdens. Some choose to ignore it in belief that by choosing to look at the happier things of the world it gives pain less credence. Some lash out in anger that perhaps by inflicting pain on others it lessens their own. Or justifies it.
Does swallowing tears make the pain disappear, or does letting it flow release it to run its course and be done with it?
It isn't the death of a colleague that saddens me. It is the heartbreaking hopelessness that he must have felt that led to his decision to jump.
Maybe if we were all a little braver to taste more deeply the bitterness of pain, we would do more to lessen the world of it.
Embracing pain
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