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What Makes Life Insufferable Is Also What Makes It Beautiful
Life’s a tragedy and that’s a good thing.
Have you ever listened to a beautiful piece of music and been moved to tears?
Have you ever cried at the happy ending of a movie?
Have you ever been so in awe of a sunset or the stars or the mountains that you felt both important and inconsequential?
In these moments, I think we’re feeling the tragedy of life. But I’m not using the word to mean disaster, I’m using it like Shakespeare and others like him would have.
In literature and drama, a tragedy is a story about human suffering that nevertheless provokes a positive transformation in the audience. Tragedy causes us to paradoxically feel opposing emotions at once.
There is something mysterious about these kinds of experiences. They pull us in two different directions but also leave us feeling satisfied and fulfilled.
What’s going on here? And is there profound meaning to be found in this paradox?
Unraveling the Paradox
The concept of a dramatic tragedy is very strange. How could there possibly be beauty in suffering? I mean, show me the beauty in war or heartbreak or sorrow.
