Refined by Fire

A couple months ago, I wrote a piece on four erroneous and ultimately, dangerous beliefs about suffering that are common in the secular world. These include: 1. Your body has the innate ability to heal, 2. You are the one who can end your suffering, 3. YOU are the one who can end your suffering, and 4. Emptying your mind can lead to inner peace. The common thread running through these philosophies is complete reliance upon one’s self. More and more and I find these ideas rampant in our society with a pronounced emphasis on self-love, self-care, and self-autonomy. For brevity’s sake, I won’t delve into explicit examples, but lately it seems I cannot go a moment scrolling through social media without reading some severely flawed cliche preaching that loving and accepting oneself is the highest of values. The last two and half years, I have focused tremendously on myself, and let me tell you-- this path leads to nowhere good. When the pain began to cycle out of control, it was all a...

  Recently, I was privileged to see Jordan Peele’s latest thriller, “Us.” I expected (and greatly enjoyed) its unsettling terror, dark humor bits, and smart writing. I didn’t expect its haunting exploration of the human psyche’s inclination to harm itself to strike me, a chronic pain sufferer,  on such a deeply personal level. While the message, “You are your own worst enemy” may just sound like another cliche, Peele’s dark edge takes it to the next level. The film holds an unflattering mirror to his audience: facing us to glare at the ugliest parts of ourselves that we are so good at repressing. As Freud has taught us: we can deny, reject, and repress all we want-- but sooner or later, these monsters will find a way to make themselves known, often in unexpected and disturbing ways. In “Us,” this means a bloodbath of epic proportions. While there isn’t a human on the planet who can’t relate to this warning (that is, if he is being honest with himself), this film’s dist...