Suffering does not discriminate.
Pain can give you sight or make you blind.
Suffering doesn't improve human beings, does it?
Few spirits are made better by the pain and languor of sickness; as few great pilgrims become eminent saints.
To a pagan, there is no purpose to suffering. As a result, he lives a life of loneliness and frustration.
I think if you've suffered, if you've experienced loss, you're probably more open to understanding it and more comfortable talking about it and experiencing it.
If anything, we older people yearn for a peaceful world even more than young people do. We are the ones who lost friends or relatives in some war. We are the ones who have lived a lifetime of seeing and reading about human suffering.
It is often said that having gone through any kind of suffering tends to makes you appreciate life more and live more in the present. I'm not sure how universal or long-lasting these effects really are.
Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.
