Hello, this is Ditto.

We boast about joy out loud, yet we treat sorrow as a shameful emotion that must be quickly hidden and covered up. A society that has forgotten how to cry constantly demands that we pretend to be okay and pretend to be strong.

However, Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran explains the mysterious role of sorrow in The Prophet like this:
"Joy and sorrow are inseparable. (...) The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

Sorrow is like a sharp carving knife that gouges our inner selves. It brings an agonizing pain as if our flesh is being carved away, but in the wake of that sorrow, a deep and wide well emerges. That empty space becomes a large vessel capable of quietly holding the greater joys that will come to us in the future, as well as the pain of others.

There is a profound depth in the eyes of someone who has passed through sorrow—a depth that those who have lived smooth, unscarred lives can never know. To grieve fully is a holy ritual of purification that washes the dust from the soul.

Are you, right now, rushing to wipe away your welling tears?

[Today's Poem]

The Person I Love / Jeong Ho-seung

I do not love a person without tears
I do not love a person who does not love tears
I love a person who has become a single teardrop
Joy, too, is not joy without tears
And where is there love without tears?
Sitting in the shade of a tree,
Wiping away the tears of another—
What a quiet beauty that is.

When tears flow, how about simply letting them flow?
I hope you believe that the hot warmth running down your cheeks is shaping your heart to be deeper and warmer.

This was Ditto.