catastrophe

People ask me for advice some time, or my personal philosophy of life, and I don't know what to say. I tell people that life is a fearsome turmoil, terrible to contemplate and vile to experience. I quote Yun Men: Every day is a good day. I tell them that I carry the crosses I'm given, accept the burden of what I must do. I tell them that I follow my light. The urge to succumb to some kind of theme or point is a strong one but not necessarily valid. Life is generally serial rather than catastrophic, and points, themes, and principles are the baliwick of catastrophic reasoning.

The point, perhaps, is that there is no shame in failure on a grand scale, provided your heart is filled with good will. These failures are not really failures at all, they are merely the terrible fire that consumes the Pheonix. There is a principle of conservation in pleasure and in pain, and escape from the cycles of desperation and despair involves nothing more than understanding that it's all basically the same thing. It doesn't mean I like pain, or that I like the fearsomeness, the turmoil, the terrible contemplation, the vileness. It's not a matter of liking or disliking. Of course I dislike it, I hate it, in fact. But this is the nature of things. What arises from it I value above all else, even my own security, stability, mental peace and purity.

klik if you demand tedious explanations of every little thing.