Tragedies and Comedy

A few weeks ago, we hosted the retreat in Vermont. Eight wonderful people showed up — a wonderful group — and several were therapists, some very well-known and successful in their fields. As people introduced themselves — their stories about who they were, their intentions and what they wanted to work on in this retreat… and as they responded to each other — there was a lot of talk on trauma — childhood trauma, birth trauma, collective trauma… ancestral or intergenerational trauma, etc.. This got me thinking about how this was viewed in the ancient world.

Joseph Campbell once noted, “In the ancient world, comedies were regarded as of a higher rank than tragedy, of a deeper truth, of a more difficult realization, of a sounder structure, and of a revelation more complete. The happy ending of the fairy tale… the myth and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read — not as a contradiction — but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man…. Tragedy is the shattering of the forms and of our attachments to the forms; comedy, the wild and careless, inexhaustible joy of life invincible.” ⁽¹⁾

Tragedy expresses the truth that – as Buddha said – life is suffering. This core insight cannot be denied or avoided. We won’t escape this drama without enduring pain. Everything we love will one day be taken away from us. Grief and loss are included in the price of admission, part of what we must accept in being here. Everyone and everything dies, and we must eventually say good-bye to all we care about.

Fame, wealth, status, comfort, and health are all fleeting and impermanent. The more we cling to anyone, anything, or any way of being, the more we will ache when it is threatened or eliminated. Suffering is unavoidable. The effort to hold onto what we love or fiercely defend some value we hold dear will often increase our own pain or inflict pain on others. Tragedy mourns the human tendency to identify with and become attached to life’s impermanent roles, relationships, and modes of expression, and the unavoidable suffering as they change, fade away, or die.

Comedy takes a different point of view. It recognizes a true essence beneath or behind the roles we play, and though we must experience life through its many forms, it celebrates the ever-present potential of connection with something larger beyond them.

A light bulb (the form) burns out, but light – as energy – lasts forever. Identifying with something greater than our bodies and our attachments to the ways and means of the moment allows us to lighten. We begin to see the play of other forces in the ebb and flow of the shifting images of existence; see the beauty and humor in the arising and falling away of things.

Like weather, seasons, and circumstances, we are not static – we can change, and we have done so many times before. We have been children, adolescents, adults; in love, divorced, sick, and healthy. We have grown, evolved, and developed through many selves and identities. Multitudes of other ways of perceiving or interacting with the world – each with their gifts, beauty, and lessons – offer themselves to us, and we don’t need to take things so personally or cling to this moment so desperately.

Loss need not leave us empty; much is available to us. Recognizing a presence – an essence beyond all the temporary identities we’ve assumed – leads to feelings of confidence and optimism, a sense of spiritual wealth and resourcefulness. We are greater than our own story, more than we are now. We can choose another path, change. Acknowledging our creativity opens many new possibilities. The social self, the ego circumscribed by its comfort zone and its assortment of habits, routines, and desires of the moment, ceases to be at the center of the world, and we can laugh – sometimes uncontrollably – in gaining detachment and distance from the story we tell about ourselves. Why would one complain or choose to be so unhappy?

And yet, that is what we seem to be doing, singing the refrain, “Trauma, trauma, trauma!!” focusing on tragedy finding ways to make ourselves victims. And this focus is happening among the most powerful and privileged people the world has ever known – people who have never experienced famine, war, plagues… people who have flown in planes and traveled around the world – something the richest and most dominant people in history could never do… people with iPhones, who have access to more information at their fingertips than was contained in the world’s greatest libraries.

“We can make ourselves weak, or we can make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” ⁽²⁾ It is so foolish to focus so much on trauma and tragedy. To claim that you are somehow limited or wounded because some ancestor whom you never met was killed in the Holocaust does nothing but damage you today.

It’s important to not deny the past… to acknowledge and (sometimes) to work on or work through the wounds of our personal history. But feeling authentic, engaged, and satisfied with our lives is a result of playing from our strengths — the positive aspects of our personalities. (If you want to find out what yours are, click here — VIA Character Strengths Survey & Character Reports | VIA Institute )

36 years ago, when apprenticing to be a vision quest guide, Steven Foster, my teacher, asked me, “What gift do you have to give to your people?” Without thinking I answered, “Joy.” He replied, “How can you know joy when you’ve had such a miserable childhood?”  I smiled and admitted, “Well, I also had a great childhood.”

The prioritizing of suffering and tragedy ignores our strength and resilience. It encourages us to ignore all we’ve been given and focus on our lacks. It makes us weak instead of strong… and leads us to waste this beautiful gift – this life – we’ve been given.

Sensing the whole arc of our lives and the connection to a larger force moving through it leads us to our strengths, to hope… to a recognition of our gifts and all we have to be grateful for. And gratitude marks the path to a satisfying life.

~ Sparrow Hart, September 2023

(1)– Joseph Campbell – The Hero With a Thousand Faces

(2) — Carlos Castaneda