joyful sorrow

The first step to the knowledge of the wonder and mystery of life is the recognition of the monstrous nature of the earthly human realm as well as its glory, the realization that this is just how it is and that is cannot and will not be changed. Those that think that they know —and their name is legion — how the universe could have been had they created it, without pain, without sorrow, without time, without death, are unfit for illumination. So if you really want to help the world, what you’ll have to teach is how to live in it. And that no one can do who has not themselves learned how to live in the joyful sorrow and the sorrowful joy of the knowledge of life as it is. Joseph Campbell excerpted in The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace by Jack Kornfield (2002) New York: Bantam Books, p.145