Varieties of Bitterness

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Why do we accept bitter feelings? Why do we nourish acidic emotions and slowly allow them to eat away our attitudes, motives, and even our spirits? The bitters come in so many varieties.

Thereā€™s the Iā€™ve-been-used-and-abused brand of bitterness that lets us stew in our own anger juices. It grows when we have no opportunity to vent these hostilities against the person who has hurt us. As a substitute, we take it out on ourselves.

Thereā€™s the everyoneā€™s-against-me-nobody-cares kind of bitterness that grow into a full-blown martyr complex. Complete with self-pity and all the extras.

Bitterness can form from a sense of Iā€™ve-been-neglected-forgotten-and-overlooked-a routine especially real when someone feels trapped in the house all day long with whining toddlers, endless chores, and a spouse who is out all day what appears to be an endless fascinating world.

Or it may be the blind, curse-it-all-Iā€™d-rather-be-dead bitterness that follows tragedy, grief, or failure. We withdraw into ourselves in despair.

Our world is infested these bitters and unless we build a support system externally and internally we may find them all too often corrupting our palates so the whole of life tastes bitter. 

Based on a passage from Gene Van Noteā€™s Building Self-Esteem

Bless you Prison

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It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties eitherā€”but right through every human heartā€”and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil.

That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: ā€˜Bless you, prison!ā€™ Iā€¦have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: ā€˜Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!ā€™ā€

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (Born Dec. 11, 1918), The Gulag Archipelago

Embracing Hard Work

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Think about how a typical English class works: You read a ā€œgreat workā€ by a famous author, discussing what the messages are, and how the author uses language, structure, and imagery to convey them. You memorize particularly pithy quotes to be regurgitated on the exam, and perhaps later on second dates. Students are rarely encouraged to peek at early drafts of those works. All they see is the final product, lovingly polished by both writer and editor to a very high shine. When the teacher asks ā€œWhat is the author saying here?ā€ no one ever suggests that the answer might be ā€œHe didnā€™t quite knowā€ or ā€œThat sentence was part of a key scene in an earlier draft, and he forgot to take it out in revision.ā€

Or consider a science survey class. It consists almost entirely of the theories that turned out to be rightā€”not the folks who believed in the mythical ā€œN-rays,ā€ declared that human beings had forty-eight chromosomes, or saw imaginary canals on Mars. When we do read about falsified scientific theories of the pastā€”Lamarckian evolution, phrenology, reproduction by ā€œspontaneous generationā€ā€”the people who believed in them frequently come across as ludicrous yokels, even though many of them were distinguished scientists who made real contributions to their fields.

No wonder students get the idea that being a good writer is defined by not writing bad stuff.

Megan Mcardle writing in the Atlantic

Napping Through Life

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For men and women who have accepted the reality of change, the need for endless learning and trying is a way of living, a way of thinking, a way of being awake and ready. Life isnā€™t a train ride where you choose your destination, pay your fare and settle back for a nap. Itā€™s a cycle ride over uncertain terrain, which you in the driverā€™s seat, constantly correcting your balance and determining the direction of progress. Itā€™s difficult, sometimes profoundly painful. But its better than napping through life.  

John Gardner, Self-Renewal