To hell and beyond

We all have individual, personalized, custom made and bespoke hells of our own making. Setting aside the religious conotations of Heaven and Hell for the present time; we all know what it feels to be in heaven and in hell. It is an instinctive feeling of being in the right place or consequently the wrong one. Any situation, be it of circumstance, of place, of relationship - that feels right is heaven for it does not provoke us to question it. A 'comfortable place' will not give reasons for the person sitting comfortably to raise objections on it. The reverse is true as well. If for any reason we find ourselves in uncomfortable circumstances or painful situations, we in a reflex mode question the 'unfairness' of it all.

Why we react in this manner is simple. For pain is to be avoided and pleasure to be seeked. Pain is intolerable, it debilitates us and makes us scared; for the utmost fear a living thing faces is that of annihilation. When we are suffering in any form, be it physical, mental or emotional anguish, we start to doubt our ability to counter the pain and suffering. And the fear of not being able to cope or overcome our struggles evoke in us a horrifying sense of all coming to an end - an end of us as we are.

I may be saying things in too twisted a way, but as Dante, the great Italian Renaissance poet describes meticulously in his 'Inferno', hell isn't a place to be easily comprehended or assimilated. It has 9 concentric circles which are traveresed by rivers of forgetfulness, rivers of fire and people tranformed into trees of warped configuration. Dante's Hell is a place of darkness, regret, continous and eternal agony and absolute pain. Do we experience the same when we go through dark times in our lives? I think the journeys are similiar for at every point of pain and suffering we stop to ask and question as to why this is happening, and why this punishment ( as in Dante's hell) or this pain has come upon us.

I am in no way propagating the school of thought which attributes sufferings in this life to sins of the past. Yes, at times of despair one does think on those lines, usually in terms of 'what did I do to deserve this?' or 'why me'. These are natural human responses to distress and attempts to understand one's position. The main driving force in a human being is self preservation - if my life and my existence is in danger, if my being is threatened, I will react and do something about it. Whether it's complaining, questioning, crying, actually taking remdial action, whatever it takes I would do it. But, there comes a time too when you want to just sit still and let all the miseries come for you begin to feel nothing you can do can avert the dangers. You are incapable of action. You talk endlessly about the problems, you think continously of what is happening, you become neurotic and yet you are unable to come to any decisive action. In simple terms you fail to overcome the situation and rise above it as any HERO would.

I feel that if one can accept that things are intolerable and pass the time in that intolerable state, perhaps even without taking any action, perhaps without trying to be a hero, but, merely abiding....the journey of darkness will end sooner than later. For at certain moments of life not acting, not reacting, not doing anything is perhaps the most heroic action.