The recipe for hurt is a unique one. Its not unlike a stew. It has elements that add to flavor, that add to pungency, that add to aroma, and to texture. That's pain for you - a rich and concocted stew of multiple elements. Its unique in that every one brews theirs quite elaborately and quite differently. It takes each a different ladle to stir this stew, though the hands that stir, almost always, are those of fate. Or is it?
We have different ways of dealing with pain. In intense pain, we are ideally sinking; uncontrollably so. We clutch at a single hay strand floating on water like it would save our lives. That one song on repeat loop, that one book that resonates in you, that one movie that you watch over and over till it no longer helps. Road trips, pub visits, smoke sessions, weed - every possible path is taken that will diverge you from the one you're destined to walk on. It's the path you will walk on nevertheless.
And then there's the muse. The ever-effusive and ever-elusive muse. Its respondent and reclusive, sharp and shy, termagant and teary, inaccessible and inconsolable. We chase it in mystic hours, awaiting the right hour to strike when the wandering mind will collide gently with the meandering muse. It seldom occurs. There's hardly such a collision when we seek it.
And then it happens. That one hour so much like every other hour before it. And yet, this hour is exclusive. It is when this fated collision finally occurs. And quite unlike your preparations and expectations of the deemed hour, you're blinded by the moment. There's an unprecedented light that overshadows your vision, a resonating echo that blocks out your own voice speaking to you, a hundred prick points all over you that hinder the warm touch of the glow emanating from the collision. The muse has struck!
It is said that one can never write without pain. And if it is written, it will remain at best, on par with the average writings of the uninspired mind. Evolution has been eliminating the weak from the strong. Features that were antagonistic to survival led to entire species getting wiped out. But of all the things that could be eliminated, why has pain remained? Why is it that the root cause of all suffering, in whatever form it may occur, continues to survive? Why hasn't evolution obliterated the weak, crying masses in one fell swoop?
We need pain. It has been the only pheromone actively seeking to draw out the muse, and seductively well at that. And this muse brings out the colors that have shone resplendent on canvases across the world, across centuries; the words that have reverberated in a million hearts in poems and stories that touch the human soul. It doesn't merely stop at that- it clouds, it moves, it crumbles, it moulds, it stirs the soul.
And therein lies the recipe for hurt.
The proverbial stew that stirs itself..
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