Memory is a fickle beast. Some memories from our childhood feel like they just happened and some memories from yesterday feel like they’re fading already. We remember what stands out to us. We remember the interesting. We remember the important. We remember the big storylines of our life. And by remembering all this, we write the story of our lives.
We selectively filter what we remember. It is in this way that our remembering self can justify the pain we suffer. And, furthermore, even the pain is selected. We enjoy feeling pain, as strange as that sounds. Without pain, life would become meaningless. Pain gives our lives purpose. Without a negative, there can be no positive. Pain is the negative to purpose’s positive.
So we create dramatic storylines for ourselves. We paint ourselves pictures as the heroes of our lives. We find a way in which we are heroic—and how can we be heroic without pain? How can we be heroic without struggle? How can we be heroic without discomfort? That wouldn’t be a heroic movie…it’d be a boring, purposeless, and unheroic storyline.
We often get lost in the worlds of our own storylines. We forget that we’re our own authors. We start to live as the main character. We relish the ups…and the downs. We get addicted to the highs and the lows. It’s fun. It’s creative. It’s a game. But sometimes we forget that it’s a game. Sometimes, we forget that it’s supposed to be fun and creative. Sometimes, we feel as if we’re entering a dark forest.
The dark forest can be a scary place to be. We feel trapped—and we’re not sure if we’ll find a way out. We are surrounded by the unknown. Every step we take is entering the void. Chaos surrounds us. We feel like the ground is shifting under us. We feel as if we’re twirling in a tornado. We feel as if the heavens are testing us.
But the dark forest can also be a place of transformation. Struggle breeds virtue. Discomfort precedes growth. The most brilliant diamonds are formed through the most intense pressure. The dark forest is a place where we see what really matters to us. It is a place where we are stripped of our clothes. We stand naked in the dark forest.
“They’ve moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you’ve got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can’t.”
— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
