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Agony - 8/14/2006 2:10:06 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline 		I was talking to my Daddy the other night about painful experiences, not my personal painful experiences, just the beauty that they can bring. I think this is why we sometimes seek a sad movie, or a sad song, or a painting that isn't necessarily pretty but evokes emotions (The Scream comes to mind).

He said that the concept I was talking about was not "sadness", but it was something deeper than sadness, it is agony. Agony has a certain beauty to it. It is that sense that if you hurt any deeper that you would either feel total peace or you would break completely and utterly. It is the sense that part of your soul may rend and that you may never get it back. It is the tears that wrack one's body until the silence comes, the peace of not being able to shed another tear. The numbness of it all. The catharsis that comes from the deepest agonies visits us rarely in this life, and I do not know if that is a good thing or not.

The ability to embrace agony came late to me in this life, the acknowledgement that pain wasn't something to run away from, but to embrace.. How else does one become the Phoenix if one never faces the fire?

Do you find beauty in agony?

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 2:13:07 PM   
SirKenin


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Joined: 10/31/2004
From: Barrie, ON Canada
Status: offline 		No.  I have dealt with enough of it that I simply find it to be a serious pain in the ass.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 2:22:12 PM   
LaTigresse


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Joined: 1/15/2006
Status: offline 		What a thought provoking question.

Being a mother to two grown children that went thru some really difficult, and at times, life threatening, issues. Having faced that and felt the agony you describe, I don't really wish to experience it again. I hope that my children and grandchildren outlive me because losing them or seeing them in great danger or pain is the only thing I know would bring me back to that place.
On the other hand I know that the way I wish to love, though never have, opens a person up to the potential for such and am willing (I think ) to take that risk. I just don't know if it will happen.


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Just because you are well educated, articulate, and can use big, fancy words, properly........does not mean you are right!

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 2:42:11 PM   
Lashra


Posts: 4900
Joined: 2/9/2006
Status: offline 		I cannot imagine the agony of loosing a child, nor do I ever want too. I have had my on agony watching my Father suffer a massive stroke, then a brain tumor and how it changed him from an independent capable man, to on who depends upon a very submissive wife who is ill prepared to deal with their current situation. He needs her to take care of him and everything else, its the everything else she cannot deal with and its driving them both further apart. 76 years old and my Mom says she thinks she wants a divorce.
No I don't see any beauty in agony.

~Lashra

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 3:19:43 PM   
ownedgirlie


Posts: 9184
Joined: 2/5/2006
Status: offline 		Julia,

Your thread comes at a very interesting time.  I have spent the last few months caring for my ill father, and after a horrible weekend with him, coiled up and screaming in pain (bone cancer), he died last Wednesday.  Was there beauty in his pain? No. 

However.  He was admitted to the hospital on Monday.  On Tuesday we learned he would not be leaving.  All five of his children came to see him on Tuesday.  In the morning, after the doctor left, he and my mother and I were all on his bed, holding hands, with tears in our eyes, talking about how beautiful his life has been, and how loved he is, and how much he loves his family.  It was the most beautiful and intimate moment I have ever experienced.

Tuesday night he was pretty doped up.  I was with him.  He opened his eyes, gave me a big bright smile, and said “I am so happy!”  He told me he was peaceful, and that I will always be his little girl.

We had the funeral on Saturday.  All five of his children stood before the congregation of friends and family, and we held hands and each took turns saying the most beautiful things about my Dad.  We honored him in the most wonderful way.  My mom sat there crying and laughing and when it was all done she stood up and clapped, and so did everyone else, and then we all started singing Dad's favorite song, by Peggy Lee:  "Is That All there Is?"  After, we cried and laughed our heads off.

Yes, there is beauty in agony.  There is if we look, and see it.

I believe pain allows us to feel life.  I spent yesterday sitting in solace, simply resting in my grief.  It made me appreciate the goodness of life, and the ability to experience all sides of the emotional spectrum.

Thanks for a great thread.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 3:24:53 PM   
Noah


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Joined: 7/5/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
The ability to embrace agony came late to me in this life, the acknowledgement that pain wasn't something to run away from, but to embrace.. How else does one become the Phoenix if one never faces the fire?

Do you find beauty in agony?


I like Sinergy's (is that right?) insertion of the word agony there.

In A River Runs Through It Norman Maclean said "Agony and hilarity are both necessary for salvation," and I do think there is a special thing which the word agony points to which isn't just pain.

Another word which might be worth bringing in is "affliction" as it appears in the English translation of Simone Weil's work.

She takes a religious viewpoint which I'm afraid would give a lot of people here the hives and would lead to all sorts of silly sidetracks but if you're interested I'll recommend her book "Waiting for God" for her treatment of affliction as well as her treatment of the beauty of horrible things, which is approximately the beauty of What Is.

It might or might not be that agony is a good name for the experience of affliction in Weil's sense. The next time I read that book I'll be thinking about your post and your Daddy's word.

Thanks guys.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 3:33:32 PM   
marieToo


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From: Jersey
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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

Do you find beauty in agony?


No.  I find beauty in beauty, because I dont equate the feeling of agony with anything that would resemble peace.  If there is peace and beauty, then there is an absense of agony, for me, anyhow.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 3:37:02 PM   
Aileen68


Posts: 6091
Joined: 8/2/2005
Status: offline 		I find absolutely no beauty in agony. 
No sense of inner peace from it at all.
It represents complete loss to me.
I find inner peace from events in my life that are joyous not devastating.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 3:50:31 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ownedgirlie


We had the funeral on Saturday.  All five of his children stood before the congregation of friends and family, and we held hands and each took turns saying the most beautiful things about my Dad.  We honored him in the most wonderful way.  My mom sat there crying and laughing and when it was all done she stood up and clapped, and so did everyone else, and then we all started singing Dad's favorite song, by Peggy Lee:  "Is That All there Is?"  After, we cried and laughed our heads off.

Yes, there is beauty in agony.  There is if we look, and see it.

I believe pain allows us to feel life.  I spent yesterday sitting in solace, simply resting in my grief.  It made me appreciate the goodness of life, and the ability to experience all sides of the emotional spectrum.

Thanks for a great thread.


I highlighted your words because they express how beauty can be found in grief that one expresses.

I was reading Jane Fonda's autobiography at a point in my life where I had just come out of this dark period. She spoke of finding the tears she was denied for decades after her mother had died, she spoke about not knowing if they would ever stop, and I related because that was my experience in this life. It was this welling up inside that demanded I acknowledge its existence, or I would not be able to go forth with anything. The grief bent me to its will and I could no longer run from it, I could no longer hide from it. It took all my focus for months.

I suffered sleepless nights, anxiety, depression, and this overwhelming sadness, and still I refused to let it come out. And then I decided I had suffered enough, and I stopped, and I lay down and I cried. I did not think the tears would stop. I thought that it was the end of me. I did not think it was okay to do this. I cried because I was told not to when I should have, I cried because we lost our home, I cried because I lost my dog, I cried because my sister moved, I cried because my best friend moved, I cried because my mom worked all the time, but mostly I cried because my father was never coming back, and I cried because I thought I could have somehow prevented that at 13. There was beauty in every tear. There was solace in every tear. There was rebirth in every tear.

They say that poetry is emotion recalled.

Perhaps grief recalled is beauty?

I could no more wish to undergo this sort of mind bending, life altering grief if you promised me all the gold in the world, but there is something about living through the loss of everything that makes one free to experience anything. I had to actually feel it to know I could feel at all. I went through 23 years afraid of feeling. I raised a son through that fear, and knowing that if anything happened to him it would be the very last thing I could live through. I hope that didn't rub off on him too much, but I know it did, because I was his ever present shadow, never letting him live because I was afraid if i did he would die....

The fact is, if people matter to us it is a risk. Very few get out of life without going through this, and yet we deny the beauty of it....


Ownedgirlie, we said goodbye to my stepfather in tthe way you said goodbbye to your father., and it was one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me.....

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 4:02:27 PM   
ownedgirlie


Posts: 9184
Joined: 2/5/2006
Status: offline 		Julia, Your own post was so touching yet made me smile at the same time.  Thank you for sharing something so personal.  I do know the beauty you speak of.  The very first time my very thick walls came crumbling down (not all that long ago, in fact), I did not think I would survive the night.  I know those tears that don't stop.  I cried for everything that ever happened in my life. I cried so hard I thought I would die.

But I didn't.

Instead I blossomed anew, as you have done, and found beauty in the shedding of pain, and of finding freedom of self.

What a great thread, Julia.  Thank you.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 5:26:42 PM   
Littlepita


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Joined: 10/6/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania

Agony has a certain beauty to it. It is that sense that if you hurt any deeper that you would either feel total peace or you would break completely and utterly. It is the sense that part of your soul may rend and that you may never get it back. It is the tears that wrack one's body until the silence comes, the peace of not being able to shed another tear. The numbness of it all. The catharsis that comes from the deepest agonies visits us rarely in this life, and I do not know if that is a good thing or not.

Do you find beauty in agony?


Wow good question! I read this several times and really thought about my life. I'm 40 and I have had my share of gut wrenching pain that has changed my life. There has been agony as well. What I have been left with the most is that my God has seen me through it and the sense of relief to have it over. What pain has taught me is that I need to brace myself, deal with it, and wait for the tide to turn and the joy to return. Thankfully, it has always ended for me.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 5:34:49 PM   
puella


Posts: 2457
Joined: 12/2/2004
Status: offline 		No. It just continues the seeming length of our eventual and inevitable death.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 6:08:35 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: puella

No. It just continues the seeming length of our eventual and inevitable death.


But why do we seem to grab on to the sad movie or the tragic piece of fiction or the sad song if they have no value and no beauty?

BTW, that was very existential of you...smiles.

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 6:15:40 PM   
puella


Posts: 2457
Joined: 12/2/2004
Status: offline 		Because if it is someone else's agony there is a distance which buffers... that is not a luxury you get when you are living your own agony.

Also, in movies and literature, there is  definitive beginning and end point to the characters agony... think instead how burdensome and eventually annoying it becomes to watch, and in even the most circuitous, way have to engage in an acquaintances personal agony.. when it goes on and on and on... it is less charming then, and usually becomes quite tiresome to have to encounter in that person after a while.

< Message edited by puella -- 8/14/2006 6:21:24 PM >

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 6:21:32 PM   
juliaoceania


Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: puella

Because if it is someone else's agony there is a distance which buffers...

It makes it safer? Life isn't safe.  I guess none of us get out alive.

I have had some deep thoughts since the death of my stepfather of how we stick our old and dying away from us and they die alone all too often. A nurse is the only one to say goodbye and to wish them well on the final journey. It is safe to turn away. I fear we maybe losing part of life when we turn away from our inner pain and turmoil.. it takes all experiences to make a life., even the heartbreaking ones.

Healing is beautiful, and if there is nothing to heal from there is no growth, no stengthening of the person, no tempering within a fire.

Without agony there cannot be joy, they define each other do they not? Or perhaps I have fallen completely into Taosim while I wasn't paying attention

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 6:24:46 PM   
puella


Posts: 2457
Joined: 12/2/2004
Status: offline 		I would just say, that if you are able to heal, the remembrance of your agony is not the same as the agony itself.  There are some agonies which there is no healing from, and with those, there is no tristesse, no tragic beauty, just the perpetuity of awakening each day to the same, unwavering pain.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 7:43:31 PM   
BlkTallFullfig


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
Do you find beauty in agony?
No, cannot say that I do.  
I don't stop living as to avoid pain/agony, but no, I don't embrace it, nor find beauty within suffering on that scale.   M

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 8:01:36 PM   
pqwinny


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Status: offline 		i don't know that i can say that i've found beauty in agony, i've never thought of it in that way.  i believe there are different ways to experience agony.  From the perspective of finally feeling, healing and releasing old and deep personal wounds, i have found freedom and in some instances (although not always immediately) joy. 

However, just the fleeting (and i do mean miniscule) thought of losing one of my children evokes a sense of unbearable anquish.  i can remember the first time i watched Steel Magnolias and Sally Fields lost it at the cemetery, i lost it with her. 

i do agree with your remark about the inverse and defining connection between joy and agony or sorrow.  Isn't it the case that most polarities define each other?  Dom/sub comes to mind.

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 8:06:35 PM   
juliaoceania


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From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
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quote:

ORIGINAL: pqwinny

i do agree with your remark about the inverse and defining connection between joy and agony or sorrow.  Isn't it the case that most polarities define each other?  Dom/sub comes to mind.


Or love and hate... they really are not opposites are they?

_____________________________

Once you label me, you negate me ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Reality has a well known Liberal Bias ~ Stephen Colbert

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

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RE: Agony - 8/14/2006 8:12:13 PM   
pqwinny


Posts: 117
Joined: 6/23/2006
Status: offline 		Hmmmm, maybe it's all about continums?

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