If You're Under 30, You May Not Want to Read This...If You're Over 30, You Likely Don't Have To

I've got a new theory. Working title: The Cross to Bear Hypothesis. All of you out there who are older and wiser can let me know if I'm getting warm.

Basically, the theory hinges on the fact that life sucks. I know that sounds juvenile, but I mean it in more of a Buddhist "the only certainty is suffering" kind of way than in an adolescent "whatever" kind of way. Nor do I mean that because life sucks, there's no pleasure or happiness. There's pleasure and happiness in spades, it's just interspersed with (or even overlapped by) periods of colossal, unmanageable, truly heart-shattering pain.

I don't mean damn-it-I've-got-to-go-to-the-dentist pain or I'm-fighting-with-my-significant-other pain or even where-the-hell-will-I-find-rent-money-this-month pain. I mean the sort of pain that is so bad you're 100% sure there's no way you can make it. The kind of pain where you keep your cell close at hand, because you many need 911 any minute now. The kind of pain that makes you sure no one else in the entire world is hurting as much as you are, because if they were, you'd be able to hear their screams.

So my theory is that, despite our seeming uniqueness and depth of emotion and confidence that no one else could possibly have it this bad, we all are suffering. All of us. Bill Gates. Paris Hilton. George God-Help-Us Bush. Our human capacity for suffering far outweighs any stockpile of money or guns or critical accolades. Them, me, you, we are all walking around with the most unbearable load on our backs, sure that we're going to break any minute now. And if you don't believe me, if you don't have some burden that makes it hard to breathe, don't worry. You will. You'll get a horrible disease or your house will burn down or your brother will fall over and die. Divorce. Bankruptcy. Suffocating loneliness. It's just a matter of time.

I know, I know. I'm a depressed bitch. But I bring this up only to help. Because the thing I'm coming to realize, the thing that's really amazing, is not that we all have our crosses to bear. It's that we're able to bear them. The world is so much more horrible than we ever could have guessed at age 5, 15, 25, but what makes us as humans so miraculous, so capable, so strong, is that we can handle the horror. We can deal with the very thing we're terrified of. That which doesn't kill us, we can live with. I'm not sure how, except that it has to do with evolution, religion, and anti-depressants.

And hope. Our capacity for suffering may be outweighed only by our capacity to imagine what it's like not to suffer.