Why Pain is Power: A random thought for Those of you Hurting

There are times we, in our selfishness, conspire ways to belittle sadness.

Or heartache.

Or rejection.

Or disappointment.

And just about anything that looks you in the eye and says ‘Gotcha.’

In denying it – or asking questions we belittle the hurt, I believe.

The ‘Why me’

The ‘Why should this happen’

The ‘I wish this were not so.’

The ‘Of everything in the world, it had to be me.’

A little about me

Here is a tiny clutch of what many of you – including my dear, dear, dear inquisitive readers and friends – may not know about me. I was a somewhat sad, a little broken and a complete Nothing. Yes, a Nothing.

The place and the hearth I come from, have no dreams. I have seen a little of the damage life can inflict when life gatecrashes your world. I know a little – a little too up close and personal – about the nightmares violence and bloodshed can create for you and your mind when the world slumbers.

I have held in my young hands friends literally torn up into two, flesh and limbs away from their bodies; killed for no reason other than their being at the wrong place at the wrong time. How do I know their destinies were at the wrong place and at the wrong time?

I do not.

Just the regret that they could have given more to the world and people if they were alive, makes me assume their demise were caused by their being at the wrong time and at the wrong place.

I have seen a little bit of violence and hunger; poverty and lack when I was growing up. I know how it feels to go to bed hungry because your widowed mother could not afford you dinner for family. I know how it feels to take to alcoholism – just to forget.

Forgetting is the harder part, you see.

Likewise, I have glimpsed a bit, of what such prolonged suffering can do to your heart and mind. Do to the person you are. Reduce you into a broken, crumbling wreck. A quivering pile of nothing.

I was Nothing. My name on books, textbooks or the few things I owned in school was always ‘nothing’ or ‘nobody.’ I was not good at forgiving myself then. I treated myself as a ‘Nothing’. A nobody. A nothing. I let the pain gnaw at me. I choose to call myself ‘Nothing’ as my name.

For instance the tage on the cover of my textbooks went something like this:

Name: Nothing Ngullie

Roll: 98

Class: Class 9

And so on.

My personality reflected it. I was an angry man for a long, long time.

Simply Put

Let us just say God created us. And our lives redefined us. Those days, I redefined myself as a ‘Nothing’. A nobody. A nothing. Nothing more than that. A sad, simmering, angry nothing.

Many years ago, a Journalist and columnist since, when I began interacting with readers, one reader mailed to me about a story she was suffering. During that time, I was going through a period of trauma of parting ways with a girl I cared for then. It was also during a time when I had only begun making peace with the loss of a much-loved one in a grisly motor accident in 2000.

Anyhow, the reader talked of things people with reasons to smile about would not.

What could I do? What advice offered would have eased her pain?

Much less, what do I say?

Years have gone by but more to come. Questions remain.  But I have also found answers.

Some scars remain a stark reminder of what was once, but now no more. Some scars have faded – a sign that I am no more at war with life and the world. Some wounds are drying – hope certainly exists.  Some wounds are still wet, like some vile cut that was ripped open after it dried. Everyday inflicts a new wound. New scars are born. Nevertheless, they dry. They fade.

However, I do not seek answers anymore. What answer do I need for questions that birth more questions from the answers themselves?  A futile ambition is what it would simply be.

Making Peace with the Past

I am just grateful for God being there, all He is giving and all He has promised to my family and me even more to come.  Today the some people describe me as "pioneer of creative writing", "famous journalist" or "one of Nagaland's top journalists" or "most read Naga media person" and such unrequited extravagance. Yes, I have had the opportunity to write for some leading publications, newspapers and magazines basically, in Nagaland, India in general and abroad. Hence, the assumption.

Nonetheless, i am grateful to God for blessing me and my family with grace and blessings I know I don't deserve at all. 

I am still learning to make peace with my past; still devising ways to smudge a line of smile on the things that ravaged my younger dreams. Still hide the scars from the people I cross paths with, in life.

I have learned that Pain, in itself is power. I believe we generally interpret Pain in terms of loss; in terms of damage; in terms of suffering. I feel we interpret pain in the way we interpret the venom of a serpent – we see only the venom, and fear it, but never the antidote within the venom itself. We do not appreciate the antidote and the lives it can save. Therefore, we generalize our fear on the entire snake. We destroy it.

There is no shame in pain. Either you turn that vile surge of anger on what you want than on what you could not have. Or was taken from you.

How do you do it? I do not have the answer. However, you can do something, my friend.

Start telling this to your self:

“I was born to win. And I shall.”

It sounds so simple, does it not. In fact, it is heartrendingly deceiving you would think I am shallow, blithe and false. Don’t you think? It sounds so lame in fact.

Still, start telling this to your self:

“I was born to win. And I shall.”

‘How do I know?’ some of you may even challenge me.

All I can say is this:

Just look at me.

Yes, just look at me.

You are looking at what God can do with just Nothing.

Oppose Women Reservation? Check out Your Mother First

In 2009, three government leaders - two of them senior government officials in the Nagaland government administration - wrote to me after one of my commentaries on the 33% Women Reservation Act went to publication. 

One article I wrote about women reservation that roused both strong disapproval and enthusiastic support alike, was one in which I indirectly referred to the situation in Mokokchung district at that time. Some local organizations "representing" the district's main tribal community oppose the women reservation.

*Note for foreign readers: Mokokchung is a district of Nagaland state. Nagaland is a Federal state of the republic of India. The district is home to the Ao Naga community.     

Of all the feedback I received after the article went to publication, the emails I received, separately, from the government leaders stood out. The reason was that their opinions were remarkably similar: "Why do you vouch for women reservation so much?"

Being someone who likes to think he enjoys scrutinizing every and any cycle of exchange, I interpreted their employing the word "vouch" as a more depoliticized - if tad diplomatic - term for 'fanaticism', naturally.

In all intent, I am unable to explain whether believing in a tenet or standing for a belief you must, could be "too much" or conversely, 'too less.'

Nonetheless, I wrote to them. You know, broaching social-political issues through emails is a task that at best is inconvenient and at worse, absurd. So, I wrote back simply thanking them for taking interest in my opinions; thanked them for serving us, the people and society.

A little on the deep side

Over the course of time, my emails with the three government leaders - with many other citizens of our state too - continued to be exchanged. We broached issues, exchanged ideas and even picked into the daily professional tasks we, as professionals, engaged in everyday, et al. In the meantime, my news reports, columns and articles continued with their run. Gradually pleasantries morphed into more elaborate 'conversations' such as sharing emotional experiences.

I recall vividly the experiences especially of the three government leaders about their early days of education and struggle when times were harsher in Nagaland. They offered identical stories: How their parents stood unflinchingly by them when days were nothing more than a long cycle on misery, frustrating toil and heart-breaking discouragement.

They wrote something in this nature:

'There was a time when everything said I should give up. But without my parents, particularly my mother, I wouldn't have made it this far. I owe all to them but my mother was the one who kept believing in me.'

Another wrote: 'The struggling was very difficult but my mother changed my life. She supported me from the beginning and she influenced my present position. It is only because of her that I was able to study, over come the struggle and get this position  etc. My parents were always supportive but my mother showed exemplary courage.'  

The third wrote something in this nature: 'If my mother was not there for me, I don't know where I would be.'

True stories from real people

I was grateful to them for sharing with me some personal pieces of their lives. Idiosyncrasies, I believe, are the chief reasons why misconceptions are born. People in position of power are not normally paragons of virtue, or for that matter, are less qualified candidates to fulfill Public Relations paradigms. But their stories were touching; ones that made you appreciate the gifts of God and life.

I knew right away that the time to strike, while the iron was hot, had arrived. 

I wrote:

One day I wrote back to each of the three something of this nature:

"Thank you for serving us and our people. I do believe you would continue to be at the high guard where the welfare of our people would not be so much an egalitarian obligation because you have been entrusted to looking after them. But because it is a sacred duty. I shall be praying that you continue to inspire, stand by them and prepare them toward the path of progress as, for instance, your mothers did when you needed a hand, a glimmer of hope and a support push. Just as your mothers changed your lives, I believe you can, too.

"I empathize with you and your ambition and pray that God would prosper your dreams. And if I may please mention, now you know exactly why I support 33% Women Reservation in Nagaland. The reason why I support it is simply for the one simple, plain and easy reason. My mother is a woman. 

"That your mother could be what she is to you, that your mother could impact where you are today, that your mother continues to be your beacon, just imagine, my dear friend, the impact on mankind every woman can have - because we all come from the ones who changed our lives; who changed our lives and who continue to change our lives - our mothers. And they are women.

"Yes, the one and the only reason why I support 33% Reservation for Women in Nagaland is exactly for the same reason that your lives were changed by her. You see, my mother changed mine too.And she is a woman."

Since writing to them the email, I have yet to hear the three wonderful people even faintly insinuate about why women reservation should not be implemented in Nagaland.