🩹 TREE 651: The pain problem
I’m a materialist using Christian texts to write to a few hundred people of all sorts of (non)spiritualities about how to thrive.
That’s a fun mix!
It’s got me thinking about why people hold the big beliefs that they do.
I’ll tell you my why.
I grew up believing – really believing – what my family believed. If you read my autobiography this summer, you know I owned my beliefs.
Then my kid died and my Christian beliefs no longer provided an answer that satisfied me. My stillborn son’s death started me on a 12-year search for an answer that did.
(Notice I’m not saying the ‘right’ answer. I’m talking about an answer that is personally satisfactory.)
I wonder how common that pattern is?
Inherited beliefs
disrupted by pain/grief
that can’t be satisfactorily explained by inherited beliefs
causing a search for
a more resonant answer
resulting in new beliefs
Does that look familiar to you?
I’m not a huge fan of Nick Cave’s music. I am a huge fan of his newsletter in which he answers questions people send him. This week he gave a beautiful answer to a 20 year-old who finds it ‘pointless to pursue anything in this bizarre and temporary world that is so much against my values in every way possible’. If you have the bandwidth for another newsletter, have a look.
Let’s enjoy The Mysterines latest single.
Happy weekend!
Jeff