Greetings, I just came across this essay, it contains some powerful truths. Here is an excerpt: If we see the expression and the living-out of our identities as the gift that we share here. Through our common struggles, we become who we were meant to be, ourselves in all our vulnerability, and in our vulnerability we are open to becoming part of something greater than ourselves. The greatest art of all could be painted onto the canvas of our lives if we have the courage and the will to turn mere potential into reality. Each one of us was born to a fundamental struggle, unique to ourselves. Climbing the mountain, instead of avoiding it, or destroying others is the only way to find meaning in our lives, something that is very important to us later-in-lifers as we try to understand where we've been and where we are headed.
Hi GW, Struggling for existence is the cause of this beautiful diversity in organic beings. Life started from a very trivial and primitive uni-cell, and now we have great conscious and intelligent beings, known as Humans. Struggling shapes us, the way winds shape the mountains. It takes a very long time, filled with burdens and tribulations, but at the end it makes us the way we are. Thanks for sharing
not all struggle brings rewards. some struggle is just struggle, and brings only more struggle. it's not cynicism or pessimism, it's just the way of the world for most of the seven billion people living on this planet. I don't honestly think I'll see a better day. My joy is knowing that someday I'll look back on these days as the good days.
I realized that I had put the wrong link in, my apologies. The author contrasts the difference between productive and unproductive struggles.
How does anyone ever know for sure who he or she was meant to be? How does one know one's struggle is the right struggle that will lead to developing "the great arts." How does one know for sure that the identity one believes is true is not just another subterfuge of the mind to lead one away from inner truth? Are we meant to be a particular person, as in fate? Aside from what might be biological, don't we choose who we are in some respect?
Struggling is the drive force that leads to development. The final target is to reach the point of stability. You wont be stable and at peace without fighting and struggling. It is a war that makes us the way we are. Some people have the courage to fight and reach this point of stability. Others, don't have the courage, and they stay in the conflict forever. Whether the point of stability is "good" or "bad", it remains better that being in the conflict for the eternity. The point of stability is simply, "finding meaning and forging identity".
