On_pain
Lately I’ve been trying to grow my relationship with pain. Not in any weird, freaky way, but more holistically, as a vessel by which growth flows. At least in my life, pain has been fundamental in much of my success. Or, at least, what I deem as success. What I would say is my greatest accomplishment, my gold medal rowing at ACRA, was some of the most pain I’ve ever felt. Through this pain there is glory.
There is another type of pain that is harder for me to manage. The physical pain is more direct, easier to face head on. However, going into software in any capacity, one must expect a fair amount of mental pain. Truly, at times this can feel like anguish. The biggest example I can think of here is the heaps of linear algebra homework, staying in the math lab most nights until it closed, looking at chalkboards and feeling my mind melting. Even still, this was bearable because I was not alone in this. I had peers and seniors there to support me, people who truly knew my position.
However, now that I am peering off into the abyss that is “the future”, there is nobody to look back. Sure, you can still be around people finding their way too, but nobody can do this for you, and in this sense, at least to me, they can’t truly experience it “with” you.
I believe this is by design, a hurdle to overcome. There are still a few friends that cannot leave; two of my favorites are Love and Pain. Love, in the sense that love is not a feeling, but a direction (paraphrasing Simone Weil).
And pain, in a similar sense, I cannot define by a feeling alone.
Pain is a vector along which I shall pour my passions, putting everything out there to chase what everyone seeks: Meaning.