{"id":200,"date":"2014-11-01T05:13:00","date_gmt":"2014-11-01T05:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.michelelonghi.com\/?p=200"},"modified":"2026-08-11T05:41:28","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T03:41:28","slug":"l-dolore-e-la-soglia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michelelonghi.com\/en\/l-dolore-e-la-soglia\/","title":{"rendered":"Pain Is the Door"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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As long as the West was Christian, the Gospels acted as intermediaries between heaven and earth. To every solitary cry of revolt, the image of the greatest suffering was offered in reply. Because Christ had suffered this, and voluntarily, no suffering was unjust any longer, every pain was necessary. If everything, without exception, from heaven to earth, is given over to suffering, then a strange happiness becomes possible.
Albert Camus, The Rebel<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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When our body is in a state of grace, in full bloom, our inner mind tends to live in a state of apartheid, of segregation; a silent surrender to what the outer mechanics order and coordinate with such mastery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the mind has its worst enemy of all lying in wait; they call it pain, but I call it the good demon of our existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pain is the door<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the knot in the handkerchief that reminds us we do not always win
\nIt is the violent storm at sea that dares us to find the shore
\nIt is the doorway to what we could not see before
\nIt is the rule against all rules It is the logic gone mad by which pain
\nIs the greatest gift<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we live through a physical affliction, we learn to know it, at first as the worst of our enemies. In time we learn to listen to it, even while still failing to understand it. More time still and we begin to anticipate its behavior and pay attention to our own reactions to it. Even so, we still consider it an enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there is a moment, an instant made of hours, days, or months, in which it happens to people that they surrender, and it does not matter how they do it. That is the instant in which pain is no longer anything more than a property of our body. In that exact moment we understand that we are ourselves, and that the best of teachers has been walking beside us all along. We disagreed with him for so long, and now we even understand why he was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The door is open now. We can enter.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Finch\u00e9 l\u2019occidente \u00e8 stato cristiano, i vangeli sono stati interpreti tra cielo e terra. Ad ogni grido solitario di rivolta, veniva presentata l\u2019immagine del pi\u00f9 grande dolore. Poich\u00e9 Cristo aveva sofferto questo, e volontariamente, pi\u00f9 nessuna sofferenza era ingiusta, ogni dolore era necessario. Se tutto, senza eccezione, dal cielo alla terra, \u00e8 in preda al […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[268],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t