Of Thorn Birds, Pain And Sacrificies..

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” There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then singing among the savage branches, it impales itself on the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen , and God in his heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain………Or so says the legend…”

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The only one reason why I came across this paragraph in ‘Thorn Birds’ by Colleen MacCullough is due to the effective PR of a pal who can’t help himself from sharing anything beautiful with the world around him. I loved this legend for the beauty of expression more than anything. Yet, I go back to it often and wonder.. Why do people feel pain is gain? Though my views have grown more tolerant towards pain, this legend reminds me of an achingly painful and purposeless sacrifice of the Nightingale for making of the red rose in the Oscar Wilde stories.

When I reflect back in one of those lazy chair moods, I wonder why is that we have so much love to pain? Pain is intense, private, overwhelming and absorbing. And guess we enjoy the high of being heroes of our lives, fighting all those unpredictabilities, chaos and let downs of life all alone. And guess thats why we remember and relate to the Romeo-Juliet, Heer-Ranjha’s of the world more than many happily ever after stories (I can’t even quote a popular love story with a happy ending! Ahem!) . Yet, We love to rationalize the pain, agony, sacrifices and sufferings of life with strange reasons best known to the cosmic entities. And we idolize those sacrifices and sufferings too. Of all the mysteries of life, aren’t we being masochistic by celebrating pain?