Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, make it your creative offering.*
Susan Cain

I think that the initial values that the brain is equipped with are pain and discomfort.**
Ryunosuke Koike

Yesterday,
I found myself encouraging someone to connect with
who they already are.
None of us can be someone else, but
we each can be more ourselves.
Perhaps counterintuitively,
This takes place as we consider how we can serve others,
Even surprising ourselves at what we can bring that helps another,
As Viktor Frankl foresaw for each of us
willing to take this journey:
Self-actualisation is possible
only as a side-effect of
self-transcendence.^
I do not know if it is possible for
all pain and comfort to be so redeemed,
But for many,
It has helped forge their distinct voice,
Enabling the most beautiful “art”:
It’s not that pain equals art.
It’s that creativity has the power to look pain in the eye,
and to decide to turn it into something better.*
Which sounds a lot like Wallace Stevens
opening my eyes to see how
the power of imagination transforms
the pressure of reality.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Ryunosuke Koike’s The Practice of Not Thinking;
^Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement.