“Humankind cannot bear very much reality”

This quote from T S Eliot posits that the often harsh, sometimes unbearable nature of life; its suffering, randomness, and lack of guiding light, makes it difficult for many people to bear the reality of.

Of course, how well one can bear life depends on a number of things. It depends first and foremost on one’s attitude. If you have a positive and resilient attitude, you can get through almost any hardship life throws at you. If you have a negative attitude, then you could feel terrible despite having a great life.

It also of course depends on the circumstances of your life. If you live a life of privilege and opportunity, it is easier to bear your “reality” than if you live a life of poverty, violence and hardship.

But it also should be said that from a philosophical standpoint, it is difficult to deal with the reality of life. The reality of how random life can be. How at any random moment, misfortune can befall you. How good people can have bad lives and bad people can have good lives.

The combined randomness, monotony, hardships and finite nature that is your life can make it difficult to deal with life as it is. That is why most people don’t try to. They deal with the immediate things in their life, often because they have to, to survive, but also to distract them from how life truly is.

This isn’t to say that life can’t be wonderful and rewarding. It definitely can, and is for many people. But it seems that often times, we have to ignore how life truly is to stay happy. We love stories, where in the end the characters (who we see as good) get the happy ending that they deserve, something that often does not happen in real life.

Life can be all things; it can be easy, it can be difficult. It can be boring, it can be nerve racking. And it can be wonderful and it can be horrible. Maybe we as humans can bear life in its reality, so long as we focus more on the positive real things instead of the negative real things.

Maybe it can be said that people deserve the best version of reality, which is why it is so difficult for us to deal with the negatives about real life. Either way, we must all strive to accept reality as it is, and work towards the better version of it.