Otherland: All the Same

Life is a complicated mess at times, but it usually treats everyone with the same callous disregard. I imagine it takes great pleasure when dishing out our punishment, punishment we tell ourselves we rightly deserve. The abuse occurs so often that we rarely even notice it until more pandemonium sets in once again. No one, regardless of what they may claim, is exempt from an existence filled with kicks and punches and reckless assault. Life tends to be a big old bully. Like the song says, “We all got bruises.” It just makes sense that most of us hide them under our skin. No one would know if they didn't know you. There will be bruises all the same. Each of us spends our entire life trying to filter any joy that comes our way. We must always permeate happiness through the constant bombardment of struggle and chaos and death. Life is hard for all of us. Tough times come to everyone. It can appear they come in different degrees. I just assume that there are a few people, here and there, that do not always experience such dramatic shifts and crisis. They don’t even know they have been damaged. They are damaged all the same. Silently they suffer, unaware of anything but whatever their “precious” might be. Others, it seems, are riddled with tragedy and sorrow. It appears that life treats them unfairly, piling on one thing after another. They never, ever, get a chance to heal. Life does not play favourites. What may be suffering to one man may well be happiness to another. We all get pummelled, we all bear scars. Sometimes we even learn lessons among all the maltreatment. Whether we believe we live a happy life or are very aware of the futility in hope, there is always another barrage just around the corner. Some people are simply assaulted while others are beaten to a pulp. It makes no sense to find a purpose in all these variables. We all must endure what comes before us. As each person is different, their lot in life is different. Just because each experience has a dissimilar quality doesn't mean that the lesson contained within is not the same.

They tell me that God only gives us what we can handle (1 Corinthians 10:13). I often wonder where He was when all the penalties for dirty fighting were handed out. I have met many people who did not handle what life brought them. Some were trapped inside themselves, unable to function and unable to go on. They go on all the same. Some are so completely damaged that they lose more of who they are in every onslaught. The constant barriers to happiness they experience greatly limit any ability to seize life and make it better. Some decide to simply lay down and die, or at least they die trying. In this boxing match, we are, apparently, all in the ring together. Just who we are fighting, I am unsure. I have known strangers who have suffered at the hands of this life. I have known many familiars, who also were battered and beaten just through the act of living. It matters little what you think or believe. Pain and heartache and challenges greet us daily whether we want them to or not. Sometimes even the happiest of people can discover the chaotic side of living just by getting up in the morning. It’s a hard, cold reality we exist within and no one is exempt. Just because one says they are means little in the greater scheme of things. To every one of those lives there come questions, “for extraordinary pain.” Even an atheist will cry out to god if you torture them enough. Unfortunately, as we should all know by now, god rarely makes appearances. Fate fixes nothing and prayer is a one-sided conversation. Any “proof of battle” comes with the scars that each of us bear, “scars that built you strong for the journey that you make.” Fight on, I say. There can never be a victory without a fight.

“These bruises make for better conversation

Loses the vibe that separates

It’s good to let you in again

You're not alone in how you've been

Everybody loses, we all got bruises

We all got bruises”

(Bruises, Train 2012)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmXaaEvnnOQ

I cannot even begin to imagine what some people must go through on a day-to-day basis. It seems unfair, as if god does play favourites. We most certainly do not all suffer to the same degrees. Still, life is harder for many. For others, it is all the same. I suppose the simple explanation indicates you either get better or you stay bitter. You either learn to live with what life has dealt to you or you can linger in the suffering. I am sure this is easier said than done. Sometimes life is cruel without reason. It appears that no one is released. Often, we barely get a break from tragedy when trauma ensues. It’s unending, this game we play. Like a match of Rockem Sockem Robots, we fight and we fight until someone’s head pops off. I am certain that mine has bounced out of bounds and rests somewhere, silently screaming. There are many voices that sing of sadness and anguish to me. When I think on these mortal creatures from my past, I am reminded that in spite of the difficult life I have experienced, things could have been far worse.

At first I thought she was wearing an African necklace, looped around her neck in varying shapes and sizes. It was scar tissue. She had tried to hang herself so many times that the welts on her neck looked more artificial than anything else. We spoke a few times and while she seemed a nice enough person, it was disturbing to sit beside someone so lost. I wanted to tell her to abandon her quest, but something told me it would be a fruitless effort. Try, try again I suppose. I noticed the damage right away, not that I had to try very hard. Her missing forearm and all those burns and skin grafts made her look like something from a wax museum. At only 20 years of age, she was already quite broken. She had dipped her arm in a gallon of vegetable oil then reached behind the stove and grabbed the power input. She did not meet her maker. I can’t begin to imagine the residue of such an experience. She was not a happy camper. He had been infected before his marriage and didn’t even know it. He found out when his wife was diagnosed and one of his children. Both eventually died while he flourished. It has never been clear to me if he could have cared less or was just as surprised as the victims of this tale. He has mentioned, on occasion, that he lives his own special kind of hell. My Grandfather laid in that hospital bed for over a year after his stroke. He withered away to almost nothing as his death approached. At the end, you could not recognize him. He was trapped in a body to which he no longer had control. You could see the defeat in his eyes. There was little mercy for this man, not that he gave much of it while he was living. I only met the boy the one time but that was more than enough to give me great pause. My partner, at the time, worked for the Canadian Deaf Blind and Rubella Association, now known as the Canadian Deaf and Blind Association. His charge was almost more than I could handle. He was completely deaf, completely blind, with little to no communication method. He looked the part with those glazed over eyes, and his physical impairments. I felt sorry for him. I have no idea if he even understood his condition. I remember walking away from our meeting thinking, thanking God, all the same, that it wasn't me.