Heartbreak
A sincere letter to the heartbroken, whom I offer consolation to.
“Hearts are made to be broken.” ― Oscar Wilde
Earlier today, I saw a tweet from a guy asking for ways to cope with acute heartbreak, which by the way, is something we’ve had to contend with since forever, and something most men must endure to outdo their own flawed preconceptions. Clearly, this man must have been feeling a profound distress, an unbearably uncomfortable feeling, as if he can’t live with himself, a deep-seated sadness that can’t, as I believe, be eradicated without being endured to its end. The feeling of heartbreak differs from man to man, and many feel it more sharply and intolerably than others, depending on the man’s character, his stability, and the woman in question.
Regardless, to feel heartbroken saps you of energy and vigour, and to think you should feel any other way than how you feel is fundamentally impractical, and realistically, improbable. To love, and to do so with great sincerity, is to suffer, sooner or later. There is no way we will be endowed with a love so indefinably beautiful that we seldom must suffer for it, whether to preserve it or overcome it.
Our finest pleasures come at a cost because almost everything in life is transactional by nature. However, the suffering that accompanies the preservation of love is far more tolerable than the suffering that accompanies its conquest. Even the sturdiest souls don’t think it effortless to loosen from those they hold dear. And if they did think it painless, it wasn’t intimacy, but something more facile, empty, meaningless, and perhaps dusty.
There is, evidently, a lack of belonging to oneself amid heartbreak, as if something has been misplaced or gashed off its joint. Your vision of the future becomes so overcast by despair and chaos that your previous resolve to attack it seems suddenly diminished or tainted by unforeseen agony. A pain which, though hard to define, seems more specific, discrete, and clear-cut than any other.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis
To attend to it seems unacceptable, more than flesh and blood can stand, but to turn it down seems and feels like the most torturous destruction and death you could conceive at that moment. Because in truth, there is no way to amend such a feeling, no matter how hard you tried to wrestle with it – you could take measures to make it more bearable, sure – by physical exertion, meditation, journaling, etc – but to think you could single-handedly modify your basic feeling is far-fetched, and furthermore, dishonest.
One thing is for certain, no matter how traumatic a heartbreak, no matter how disquieting a silence, man carries within him the strength of a thousand battles, and even in the most grievous circumstances, man – you – will overcome any transitory pain, even if it proves to be long-lasting and apparently indefinite. My hope for you is that you don’t, as a result of your numerous injuries, carry the resentment of a disturbing breakup, because it will betray every aspect of your life, and invite more difficulty than ever.
Maybe someday, you will be able to laugh it off in good spirits and pass on the wisdom to one of your fellows, but if that is not fated and a worse alternative transpires, you ought to remember that holding a pathetic grudge is a punishment unto yourself. If you don’t seek self-forgiveness and accept what is, you’re going to keep wallowing in what could’ve been and never will be, a terribly vicious circle which bears no fruit and ultimately prolongs misery.
In order to untie ourselves from the sadness and sorrow of great grief, we must inevitably come to some sort of toleration, if you will, with reality. You and I both know reality is not meant to be unreservedly kind to us – and that’s a good thing, without great challenge there is no conquest – we live in a world governed by cold-blooded psychopaths. If you fail to summon the potential brutality within you and cultivate a degree of savagery, you will suffer hard for your impotence, without ever taking your fair share; what is yours to take by merit of your excellence.
Heartbreak is transient, but resentment often lasts a lifetime in many cases, and is worse than death. A man is tenfold more powerful because of his trauma, so long as he wields it to consolidate himself. Often, men are discouraged by heartbreak, not realising that if it weren’t for coming to grief with themselves, there would be no fortification, no augmentation of the soul, no character integration. Heartbreak will almost always act as a means of rediscovering and harmoniously bringing to the forefront our darkest aspects, which of course encompass the indispensable heart and marrow of our nature.
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A good read.