Pain
Life is painful. Life is complex. Life is filled with ugly emotions and experiences that we struggle to understand.
We become so overwhelmed by these things that we do anything not to feel. We pile layers upon ourselves, we drown in distractions, we make up answers to our problems until we forget the question. Anything as long as it is not pain.
And we do this so often that we soon forget to feel anything. We become muted and grey. We wonder what extinguished the fires of our spirit. Did we ever have one to begin with?
Instead, why not lean into the knife when you feel it pierce you? Savor every moment of the pain. Feeling something, even something painful, makes us remember that there is life past the surface, past the grey noise; there is something more within us.
And once we truly remember, pain ceases to be pain, but fuel for the fires of our choosing. We can light up the world with the wreckage we have worked so long to hide.
The question then becomes: what shall we ignite within ourselves?