Delirium of Pain©
Why I Ride
By Night Train
We are all, to some degree and without exception, “in pain”. Pain is inevitable; it is essential. We can run from it, numb it or learn from it. We cannot escape this reality. We learn, or we continue to be broken until we decide to embrace pain’s lessons with humility and compassion. Compassion for ourselves and, yes, compassion for those who hurt and betray us—or seem to betray us.
So, what, in your opinion, is the greatest form of pain? Cheating? Stealing? No. Not based on my experience. Personally, I would rather someone cheat on me (which has happened in almost all my tumultuous relationships, including one of my two marriages). Stealing? Pretty bad too. There is, however, nothing compared to a breach of your deepest confidentiality. If someone steals from you, you can always make it up. If they breach your deep confidentiality, they are stealing from and violating your soul in the most severe manner. And that is where I’m going here. There are pains greater than others, therefore greater lessons to be learned. I will, however, point out here that I am not demeaning the trauma victims of cruel physical, mental, psychological, emotional, or spiritual abuse experience. This is merely an opinion based on common relational matters.
A breach of confidentiality turned into slander and gossip is a vicious, malicious, pernicious, and repulsive violation of one’s soul. A violation so deep, there is no coming back from it. What I’m talking about here is when you are in a position where you love so much you open all gates of your soul. You show the good, the bad, and the ugly in the deepest manner, where self-hatred once reigned under the veil of shame. You open that door of pain hoping it will be received as a true, genuine, authentic demonstration of commitment and dedicated love. But not everyone is equipped or prepared to truly receive or share truth, transparency, and brutal honesty. That’s the lesson here.
Betrayal is one thing. Betrayal with the addition of slander and gossip no matter how justifiable it may seem to be by the perpetrator stems from deep-seated insecurities. From a deep pride hell bent on avoiding the reality of one’s own failures. It is ignorance of the truths of life in the emotional, spiritual, and psychological realms. Why? Because all these individuals have ever known is pain. Therefore, they can only offer pain. Betrayal by slander is committed by unawareness, hurting minds and hearts. It helps them forget about their own pain, their own flaws. It gives them the illusion they are not accountable for their own words or actions. Therefore, they will mercilessly point at one’s lifelong injuries, reopen their wounds, and twist a knife back in it so they feel justified in walking away from standing by you. The religious are very good at that. They feel you are too ugly to love, to stand by or defend you when you need it at your most vulnerable points.
Once you deal with the depth of hell in your own soul, facing all your most ugly painful demons, you come to understand people like that. You grow to have compassion for them. You see their wounds. Invisible forces raw with emotions still have control over them. You see their pain, their chains. How it affects them. You understand their blindness, their triggers, their sins. But how do we deal with people in pain who, in most cases, aren’t aware of their own pain? Who, to forget their responsibilities and numb their pain, become—despite themselves—instruments of pain.
Pain by separation is the very first thing, the first trauma we get to experience at birth. We come into this world by a necessary break of the bond from life sustained in the womb. From that moment, unless you were the fortunate benefactor of true comforting love from parents immediately after birth, we only know the trauma. A separation associated as a sort of twisted reference to comforting love. This creates a massive void—a giant monster vacuum in search of anything that will appease that unbearable void, including anything and anyone that will potentially cause us pain. This profound, unwanted, uncomfortable, and painful separation void of connectedness. The “unloved” kickstarts into a lifelong journey to reconnect with something. Anything. This intimate, intricate connection—soul-to-soul—we seek to cultivate with and in search of the right heart. This “soul mate.” This “twin flame.” Some will embrace just about anything or anyone to at least have an illusion of being connected and loved. Sadly, this will be at their own cost and at the cost of others. Like vampires and junkies.
As a result, the unloved do not know life without pain. And so, pain is mainly all the unloved can offer to others and to themselves. Sadly, others do not know life without pain either, so pain is mostly all they can offer as well. I say this in a general way. The perfect storm between imperfect hearts and souls that buy-in and embody made-up lies about the self, involuntarily imposed by others from an early age.
In our feeble attempts to connect and love, we hurt. Our hurt hurts others and vice versa. This is, it seems, the one thing we all have in common in the process of learning our way back to love. Contrary to popular trends, I will dare say love is not about the cult of self. Sure, we need to care for ourselves, but some will take that to the extreme. Love is about selflessness. I would say we cannot love ourselves before we learn to selflessly love the unlovable with compassion. And if we see many as unlovable, is it also fair to say we are ourselves quite unlovable to many? No? Pain generates pain and wickedness for the weak and unaware. It takes great strength to see others’ pain for what it is. To see the effect it has on the unlovable. That is where compassion can become stronger, generating peace despite the pain imposed by others. You become detached from the chains of vengeance, bitterness, and resentment, resulting in greater enjoyment of life.
We, therefore, navigate life riding through mutually ancestrally-caused pain, hurt, lies, deception, gossip, slander, hate, love, “pseudo-love,” truths, bonds, and betrayals. We try as best as we can to make sense of it. We will be betrayed to the deepest core, and we will also betray (I’ve been guilty too). The ego and the pride in us are hurt, so it blindly blames others. It wants to get even. It wants to justify why we don’t deserve what was done to us.
We all turn into narcissists to varying degrees, and we play victims. And how we all love to play victims, don’t we? It seemingly takes all responsibility away from the choices we made in the first place. How convenient. We unknowingly lie to ourselves and others because we bought lies that looked like truths about us. Therefore, we betray ourselves. If we betray ourselves, then by default, we betray others. The result is the concealment of our true and unknown, unaware identity. It is a sick coping and protection mechanism that gives the illusion of safety. It throws us deep into the dark chambers of solitary emotional confinement. That’s where evil wants us. Our hearts grow colder and colder, unforgiving and without compassion for ourselves and others. Some jump from person to person in short-term serial relationships as a temporary band-aid. Fifty percent plus of marriages fail, don’t they? Because our hearts grow cold. Some do drugs, others alcohol or whatnot. We numb. Some believe their own lies, and that becomes extremely dangerous, leading them close to a path to hell.
“If you practice violating your own conscience with a performative contradiction—a willingness to act out what runs contrary to your own sense of morality—then you become the embodiment of a lie. There is endless metaphorical speculation of the spirit of the lie, and if you allow it to take up residence with you, then you do that at your peril. The danger of being an actor is that you become the actor, and then you lose you. You replace you with that falsehood, and that will make you bitter, which only leads to becoming revengeful—and worse. Therefore, you do not want to practice that.” ~Dr. Jordan Peterson
We get triggered, and we trigger others. Depending on our perception of reality and our ability or inability to communicate in the context of expectations, we judge, we label others as “narcissist,” “liar,” “manipulator,” or whichever label can be slapped to alleviate the pain of our ego and our pride and, most importantly, our refusal to take responsibility for our own actions, our own thwarted sense of reality. We ignore our role in choosing as we did. We react and justify instead of responding with mature thoughtfulness. We give up. We break up. We walk away. We get exhausted mentally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Then frustration and anger take over, triggering words and actions we know we will regret. And so we get angry and prideful and vengeful and bitter and resentful and egotistical because others, we feel, have betrayed us. It’s a vicious, insidious cycle within.
That is until we start tasting the beauty of Truth within by understanding the above-described dynamics, how it affects us, and others. We become deeply aware, slowly empowered by the freedom these truths reveal to us about the lies of pain and living in pain. We become more understanding and compassionate with ourselves and with others. We start seeing their pain for what it is. We start seeing that their actions and reactions do not define who they really are deep down. And when we start to understand our own pains and triggers, we become more compassionate with ourselves. And slowly, the stronghold of shame and guilt and coping systems lose their luster, revealed for what they truly are: poison to our souls, decapitating us from our full potential in life. Anxiety, depression, and the rest we like to medicate no longer need meds. That is, if we have the courage to face those demons head-on. Only once we taste Truth can we start being in a position to offer our true self, genuine love, and compassion. Pain and betrayal’s paradigms change to be seen as lessons for growth and personal responsibility.
So, when you ask me why I ride, well, it helps me make sense of all the above. When I 
ride, I reflect, I meditate, I pray, I laugh, I cry, I scream, I talk out loud. It helps me digest life’s betrayals, gossip, and slander, yes, but more importantly, it helps me to grow in compassion and understanding towards those who still hurt deeply. It helps me look at my own pain and the lies it tempts me to believe. In two different conversations, Jesus was asked about divorce and forgiveness. On divorce, He said God provided this option “because of the hardness of our hearts.” Then He was asked how many times we should forgive our brother who sins against us, and He said, “seventy-seven times.” Easier said than done, but once you can understand someone’s scars, it becomes easier to love them regardless.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ~1 Corinthians 13:4-7
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