Of Hope (and Sorrow)

Defining “improve” or “better” in the context of our lives is always an interesting proposition. Following a generally Buddhist ontology and cathartic acceptance of suffering as irreducible, I wonder if the role of suffering and imperfection is so profoundly and intricately entangled with happiness and (an) aspirational ascent towards perfection that – if our lives were not so endemically inclined towards entropic disassembly and dissipative fragmentation – we would not only never recognise anything good or valuable without sorrows and losses but that they would be rendered quite profoundly unintelligible without their concomitant, complementary and melancholy existential companions.