The deadening of the heart/mind/soul
I was speaking with a friend yesterday who said that the loss of a good friend had a numbing affect on the heart. I told her I keep reading how loss, pain, suffering helps us grow, but I’m on the fence whether to subscribe to cyncism or faith on this subject. I have often quoted Jane Hirshfield’s Proud Flesh – the horse’s scar that can’t be wounded again.
We are all marching forward building up our scars – if we have lived fully then many scars – and while we grow wiser, tougher, we also become number, anesthetized against future pain or anxious about the possibility of losing again (read: fearful, rigid).
If we have had success in the past, in love, in work, in our talents – we hunger for more of the same.