Tragedy is inevitable.
So then why is it that we love to doubt its existence? Throughout my short sixteen years on this earth, I’ve come to notice humanity’s relentless attempts to shield ourselves and our youth from anything we deem sad or that is associated with negativity. We complain that the news is “bringing us down”, that our novel is too “depressing”, or that we don’t like talking to that one person who’s had all of those bad things happen to them because they “kill our vibe”, so to speak.
But the thing is, this obsession with happiness and positivity that we want to constantly surround ourselves and those we care about with is, at it’s core, a delusion that can easily lull us into a false sense of content. This is not only foolish, but dangerous, as I have experienced firsthand the psychological repercussions that are derivative of such ignorance to calamity of various extremes.
I can recall being much younger, and having never been exposed to important facts that left me blind to life’s harshest realities. I knew my grandfather “wasn’t with us any longer”, but it wasn’t until seven years later that I discovered he had been killed in a terrible accident. I knew my mom and dad “didn’t love each other anymore”, but as I grew older, I learned they had split up before I could talk and resented each other ever since. I knew my uncle “went away for a while”, but it took five years for me to realize he had gone to rehab for the third time. Now I know that bad things happen all the time, but I’ll never understand why.
From addiction, to illness, to death, most of us encounter familial catastrophe or otherwise tragic events at an early age. However, I know that for myself and many others, we spent our youth being “protected” from the truth, and unconvincing euphemisms lacking explanation were provided in it’s place. Even for those who believed to have had the most authentic of upbringings like myself, complete with uncensored profanity and other constant inappropriateness being a norm in my household for as long as I can remember, exposure to anything involving upsetting honesty was kept eloquently out of reach.
Unfortunately, though, once kids become teenagers, and innocence becomes anger, and curiosity turns into bitterness, this kind of protection that was once instilled upon us later manifests itself in ways that somehow make us even more miserable. It’s almost as if our abrupt understanding of life’s most unsettling truths send us into a downward spiral of distress. That’s probably why I’ve been an angsty mess since the eighth grade.
Whether we like it or not, we can’t cherry-pick the aspects of life we enjoy the most or find the easiest. In the end, overlooking adversity results in only more damage, rather than acknowledging it beforehand.
I believe in embracing life in it’s entirety, tragedy and all. I believe in telling kids stories without happy endings. I believe in being sad when our minds tell us to be. I believe in letting negativity into our life when it’s waiting to be let in. But most of all, I believe that once we come to terms with life’s conditions, we become better equipped to deal with them.
