To Know Struggle

There are many that float along through the currents of life, oblivious to the notion of struggle.
There are many who are blind to it, have no name for it, see life as simply a mild struggle day in and day out.
Some strive on it, seek it out, find pleasure in the burn. The more the better.

And then there are those who have known struggle, truly known it
Looked it directly in the face, an unwelcome face that keeps returning, a stark familiarity in which the lines between friend and foe begin to blur.
Struggle to them is more likened to pushing a boulder up a steep hill,
A boulder with unrelenting eyes that stare into what’s inside them, the soft of their core, as they push, daring them to lose their nerve.
Whether it be found in the realms of the physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual…
Or all of the above.

They are the ones who must bear the weight of a critical decision
Push back against the boulder or be crushed by it.

And they might consider it an unfortunate thing, to have met struggle in such a personal way.
To know it so well, they can feel it before it even crosses the threshold
Or begin to expect it in situations it never intended on showing up to.
And wonder, why has it chosen them to reveal itself so entirely to?
What did it see inside them, that made it keep coming back?

But those who decide to resist struggle, push back against it, lean against it’s gravity…
Begin to develop a certain kind of strength that would not be possible otherwise.

You could call it resilience, will, determination.
Or you could simply call it agency
The awareness to be able to see struggle, feel it, know it, and decide within yourself to push forth anyway.
Something you are equipped with everything to be capable of doing.

And the terrible thing that it does is it makes you feel weak.
Or rather, you mistake your relationship with struggle for weakness.
You feel hurt before you heal
You feel weak before you are strong
You feel incapable, before you are.

The resultant version of you, the one grown along this linear experience of time, is entirely dependent on you choosing to push through struggle time and time again.
And you don’t feel weak because you’re failing
You feel weak because you’re struggling
Because you’re growing
Because you’re changing
And if it’s not difficult, then you remain the same, and that is clearly not what was intended, if you look at the nature of everything around you.

At the nature of trees, plants and flowers
The struggle from seed to stem to blossom to fruit
Through the pursuit of light and the need for water
You could compare their struggle to a human’s
But their case is a simpler one of survival and continuance
Whereas ours become far more complex, and can develop into matters of the soul.

I could list countless beautiful things around me, that struggled for their beauty
Because what is beauty truly?
The intricate? The symmetrical? The colourful?
Or is it dedication?
The attentive focus that resulted in it?
Is the beauty we see really the vision that became it? That became through struggle?
Because vision and struggle has its own unique relationship.

Consider a beautiful cathedral, carved intricately from stone, through years of dedicated work and devotion.
Every pillar shaped perfectly
Every tile engraved carefully
More than a hundred years of work by human hands.
Something which, many of those who worked on it, would never see finished in their lifetime.
They only had a vision, and their dedication to the struggle, with no visible endpoint for them.
But for us, that endpoint is received as beautiful.

My point, my belief, my experience
Is that those who have struggled, know struggle, know how it works and and know they can never un-know it, can never unsee it, know that in some ways it’ll never end,
and still chose to continue through it, despite it.
To push the boulder up the hill, to grow stronger, so the boulder is not so unmanageable…

And those who have spiralled in their attempts at relief from it and didn’t realise how far they had fallen until they felt the numb cold of stone at the bottom of a well beneath them
Climbed back up anyway
Knowing there is still a way down
But knowing there too is a way up
And choosing that one
Constantly
Everyday
Even if it burns
Even if it hurts
Even if it would be easier to slide back down again
Climb out of there and start pushing the boulder again
The result of that in a person is a thing of great beauty to me.

This is not about comparing the frequency, intensity, or severity of struggle.
It’s about whether or not someone truly sees and understands it, then chooses to carry on anyway.

So yes, to know struggle so personally is a difficult thing, but it means you know a lot more about life than you realise. You see more. You feel more.

You understand what it takes to make something of yourself.

And what might justifiably seem like a curse, is at least one with opportunity.
Potential.
If everything in you noticeably does not agree with what you find, around every corner of what this world has become, then that in itself is a very real struggle.

That is an internal disagreement with the external
That means pushing through something you resist
Cruelty
Selfishness
Judgement
Prejudice
Oppression
Greed
Things people take in their stride without even realising, because it’s easier than struggling in the resistance against them
And you not becoming part of it along the way
Not contributing to it
Not allowing these things to grow even further, through you
Or to consume you with sharp teeth, piercing words, cutting looks from others
To protect what’s within you
What drives you
What haunts you only in the way that you want it but it isn’t there yet
Whispers of a future abundant with the things you care about
Things that don’t just ease the pain but extinguish it entirely
And your relationship with struggle changes
Your relationship with everything changes.

And all of that, to go through all of it, means you will manage to find more beauty in the world than you could have otherwise,
because you understand what it took for that beauty to become so
Because it’s in you too
Engraved
Carved
Shaped
By you
And that’s the kind of beauty that the soul appreciates
The kind that causes it to grant you strength, and wisdom 

I’d rather struggle for my soul, than be a happy idiot, or a shape of something once living forever slumped at the bottom of the well,
and I have a real soft spot in my own core for others who do too.

A great life isn’t necessarily about doing great things,
It’s about becoming a great thing, through the deliberate and intentional victory over everyday struggle.
And what follows is simply a bonus.