Two Human Beings. Munch. The Lonely Ones, Ca. 1935. Wikimedia Commons

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle”

Plato

Variously attributed to Robin Williams or Plato, this quotation, despite the uncertainty of its origin, contains a deep and important nugget of wisdom. It reminds us that, no matter how a person might appear superficially, our knowledge of the connected experiences of the human race reliably informs us that the other is, indeed, fighting many internal battles, struggling with issues of which we know nothing. Inside, we are all hiding some fragility.

Herbert Tröndle. 1973. Portrait by Ulrich Christoph Eipper. Wikimedia Commons. Author:Maltechnik, 2025.

“One of the things that we admire about porcelain is its delicate fragility. We should learn to appreciate the same in people.”

Andrew Davenport

People may appear ‘fine,’ confident and ‘got-together,’ whilst also masking issues that are painful and difficult. We will come to know it in others, because we know it in ourselves. No-one is exempt from the vagaries of life, no one escapes its trials and tribulations, its pain and uncertainty, its fears and worries…

Caspar David Friedrich – A Walk at Dusk. Between 1830 & 1835. Wikimedia Commons

“Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it’s true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion.”

James Baldwin

The deep truth about us human beings, and a key aspect of the human condition of which we are all a part, is that we will, inevitably, experience emotional and physical damage in our lives, and we all struggle through life to make the best that we can for ourselves out of this damage. It may not appear so on the surface, as I have said, for humans are generally adept at hiding their pain.

Some, however, cannot cope, unable to manage the painful results of life’s blows; others may be more successful and still have constructive lives. All of us are exposed to the realities of being human and subject to the effects of the human condition.

Given this, most of us try very hard to manage our damage, to make the best of the hand we are dealt, within the limitations of the human condition. The battle to do this is an internal one, a tussle with many aspects of life, the self, suffering the pains, perhaps, of an inner world beset with distress and mental torment. Difficult though it may be to do so, we need to remember this when we encounter others, especially those who may be struggling. Jumping to judgemental conclusions about someone can mean that we might miss some vital signs of their distress.

• Some further facts about the human condition…

The Human Condition (René Magritte 1933) Author of photograph of this work: 11 September 2021,
Author Haeferl

“Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.”

Michel de Montaigne

The Human Condition is a term that encompasses the common needs, experiences and essentials of existence of every one of us. It refers to a state that universally affects all human beings on the planet. We may be diverse in many ways, and our differences are highly important in society, yet we are deeply connected as human beings. This profound connection will mean that there will be experiences common to every one of us, and that it is important that we understand this, and know that others are ‘in the same boat.’

Part of the reality of being human is that, whilst life can be beneficent and kind to us, it will, inevitably, also damage us all in some way.

• What are some of the difficulties we have to face and how might we manage our damage?

1. We connect with others as we all share universal emotions in facing life’s difficulties

La Mélancolie (c. 1785) by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée; Wikimedia Commons

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”

James Baldwin

The emotions of humanity are indeed universal. For example, we all feel love, hate, anger, envy, fear, joy, pain and suffering.

We all have different ways of coping with what life throws at us; some of us have therapy, turn to religion, wear a mask.  However, all these are ways of coping with life’s trials and tribulations. Some ways of being and ways of thinking are better and more effective than others, but the truth remains, everyone is trying to do their best to survive the damage that they have encountered in life, even if their chosen methods might appear self-destructive.

‘Portrait of an Old Man Begging’ by Michael Sweerts. Wikimedia Commons. 17th century.

Perhaps knowing this can help us to be more patient, more understanding, more empathic. Some people may come over as difficult, as snappy, lethargic or miserable; rather than going on the attack, can we try to understand that they, too, may be attempting to manage the damage, albeit rather unsatisfactorily?

Sometimes, people use coping mechanisms that can appear quite negative, even harmful, when perhaps that is the most they can manage. These defensive strategies may have their purpose in the short term, as a way of coping with unmanageable emotions. Overworking, overeating, pushing others away, may all be used as methods to get though in the short term. Whilst these can cause problems over time, they may, in the moment, feel like the only way of getting through difficult days.

2 We are compelled to face existential issues.

Death and Life (1910–1915) — Gustav Klimt

“One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death.”

Aldous Huxley

We are all, ultimately, alone in this world. We enter it alone and we leave it alone.

“Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?”

Thomas Wolfe

Irvin Yalom has been something of a pioneer in terms of existentialist psychotherapy, in which people can address their fears about the uncertainty of life and of dying. His work highlights the way we all grapple with the problems of existence, and how fears in this area constantly underlie the presenting problems of psychotherapy patients.

“Everyone – and that includes therapists as well as patients – is destined to experience not only the exhilaration of life, but also its inevitable darkness: Disillusionment, ageing, illness, isolation, loss, meaninglessness, painful choices, and death.”

Irvin D. Yalom

“Four givens are particularly relevant for psycho-therapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.”

Irvin D. Yalom

3. We create stories…

James Carroll Beckwith. The Letter. 1910. Wikimedia Commons

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

Joan Didion

Finding and creating stories about life’s predicaments is an important way of coping for many people. Stories can help us through life, because they frame our experiences in ways that can make them more palatable, more understandable, more universal.

Human beings need narratives, they need them to help analyse and interpret life and its vicissitudes, to question, to make meaning out of what might initially appear random and purposeless.

Although the stories that are created may be based in reality, others may be fantastical, superstitious, a little crazy. And yet, at the time, such stories, whilst perhaps self-deceptive, can help people get through, a difficult time, albeit temporarily. Fairy tales are an example of stories that can help us with understanding and wisdom, at all stages of our life. They contain great common sense and insight.

There are to be discovered in fairytales fundamental life-lessons and problem-solving techniques that can educate us all, at whatever age. For example, many fairytales have as their theme the importance of resilience, courage and strength in the face of enormous life challenges.

Whilst many people leave fairytales behind them as they mature, at later stages in life they may feel nostalgic for these stories and view them in a different way.

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

 C.S. Lewis

• Gaining insight…the paradox: can this pain and damage actually teach us something? 

The Garden at the Asylum at Saint-Rémy. 1889. Vincent Van Gogh. Wikioo

“Injury in general teaches you to appreciate every moment. I’ve had my share of injuries throughout my career. It’s humbling. It gives you perspective. No matter how many times I’ve been hurt, I’ve learned from that injury and come back even more humble.”

Troy Polamalu

The fact is that, at times, we can gain illumination through life’s suffering. That is the paradox central to injury, physical or psychological. This innate contradiction can teach us much.

“The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain.”

Madeleine L’Engle

What effects does suffering have upon us? We would not wish for such pain, for ourselves or others, but, if it comes, can there be anything in it at all that might benefit us?

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

Mary Oliver

The poet Mary Oliver discovered that, in time, out of the box of darkness came some goodness, some light. This can be in the form of new insight, learning, friendship or life experience. Such awareness of the good that may come from bad is part of a process. This is a process of resolution, of healing, of working through our painful darknesses in life and moving into something lighter and brighter.

“Pain can be vitalising; it gives intensity in the place of vagueness and emptiness. If we don’t suffer, how do we know that we live?”

Sebastian Horsley

Wassily Kandinsky, 1920 – Points. Wikimedia Commons

“Deep lines cut by trauma provide access to depths that are otherwise unreachable. In such instances, nourishment follows trauma to new places. We wish things could be otherwise … easier. But we have little choice when illumination shines through injury.”

Michael Eigen: Flames from the Unconscious: Trauma, Madness, and Faith

Suffering can, ultimately, lend us wisdom and awareness of deep truths about ourselves and the world.

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

Theodore Roethke

At Midnight. Light of the Shambhala (1940) by Nicholas Roerich

“Beautiful are those whose brokenness gives birth to transformation and wisdom.”

John Mark Green

© Linda Berman