Let It Hurt: The Ethics of Reality Without Flinching
An unflinching look at trauma, conditioning, and the quiet rebellion of radical acceptance.
I was sitting on my back porch, wallowing in memories of my childhood and the traumas that had followed me into adulthood, when a thought came to me as a question:
"What would it mean if I just let this hurt without trying to make it mean something useful?"
The question seemed to come from nowhere. Of course I was trying to make it useful. Wasn't that the point? You process trauma so you can grow from it. You examine your patterns so you can change them. You sit with your feelings so you can learn from them.
But the question kept returning: "What if I just... let it hurt? Without a lesson. Without growth. Without it serving any purpose at all."
The idea terrified me.
I've Been Turning Pain Into Projects
I realized I'd been treating every difficult emotion like raw material for self-improvement. Got rejected? Time to examine my attachment patterns. Felt overwhelmed? Perfect opportunity to practice boundaries. Someone hurt my feelings? Let's turn this into a workshop on communication.
I was exhausting myself by refusing to let anything just be what it was.
For years, I tried to turn my childhood into a story about resilience. Yes, things were difficult when I was young. But look how strong it made me. Look how empathetic. Every difficult memory came with a moral attached, every wound came with a workshop.
But what if some of what happened to me was just... bad? What if it didn't make me stronger or more empathetic? What if it was simply something that shouldn't have happened to a child, and the fact that I survived it doesn't mean it was somehow worth it?
That question led me to understand something I hadn't expected: I wasn't just avoiding pain. I was avoiding the collapse of stories I needed to believe—about myself, about fairness, about the world making sense.
But here's what started becoming clear as I paid attention: this meaning-making wasn't something I was consciously choosing. It was automatic, absorbed conditioning, passed down through generations of people trying to make unbearable experiences bearable. The voice that insisted my pain must be productive carried scripts I'd never consciously adopted—cultural programming about resilience, worthiness, and the moral necessity of growth through suffering.
How Stories Get Written Before We Notice
I'd be in the middle of explaining why I did something—to a friend, to myself, to my journal—and halfway through, I'd realize I was making it up as I went. Not lying, exactly. More like discovering my own rationale in real time, assembling a story that felt true enough to satisfy the question.
That recognition cracked something open. Because if I was narrating my choices after they happened, what exactly was doing the choosing?
The research confirmed what I'd started feeling: we don't choose, then act. We act, then scramble to create a story about why we chose to act. In the 1980s, neuroscientist Benjamin Libet discovered that our brains begin preparing to move 300-500 milliseconds before we experience "deciding" to move.
Your brain isn't a decision-maker. It's an editor. It works frantically to turn the raw chaos of existence into stories that make sense.
When something hurts, our minds don't just register the pain. They immediately generate meaning: "This is teaching me something." "This is making me stronger." "This happened for a reason."
These explanations carry absorbed scripts about how pain should be understood. What suffering is supposed to accomplish. How we're supposed to respond to difficulty.
What I was discovering was that this automatic meaning-making around pain was particularly loaded with cultural conditioning—messages about resilience, productivity, growth through adversity that I'd internalized without ever consciously choosing them.
This insight would prove crucial when my personal meaning-making systems collided with a much larger collapse.
When the Stories We Trust Fall Apart
About six months later, I learned something that shattered a story I didn't even know I was telling myself.
I discovered that the Supreme Court operates more like professional wrestling than constitutional law—elaborate performance designed to legitimize predetermined outcomes. The same desperate meaning-making kicked in immediately.
My mind rushed to find redemptive narratives: "Maybe this corruption will lead to reform!" "Perhaps people will finally wake up!" "This betrayal will ultimately strengthen democracy!"
But I recognized the pattern I'd been playing out with my own trauma. I was doing the same thing with institutional betrayal—trying to make it productive, trying to extract wisdom, trying to turn the senseless into sense.
And I could sense that these hopeful narratives were coming from absorbed conditioning rather than clear assessment. The part of me that insisted institutional corruption must lead somewhere productive was carrying the same cultural scripts that demanded personal trauma serve a greater purpose—conditioning about progress, hope, and the moral necessity of finding meaning in suffering.
If you're feeling that particular vertigo right now—when something you learned to revere reveals itself as performance—you're experiencing a version of what I felt as my personal and collective narratives collapsed in tandem.
The Lie of Productive Pain
What I started seeing was how deeply I'd internalized the myth that suffering is only valid if it teaches us something valuable, makes us stronger, or serves some greater purpose.
This myth operates at both personal and collective levels. Just as we rush to extract lessons from individual trauma, we desperately seek redemptive narratives when trusted institutions reveal themselves as elaborate performances.
But notice what's happening when you generate these hopeful narratives. Are they coming from genuine assessment of possibilities, or from cultural conditioning that says despair feels too dangerous? The impulse to insist institutional betrayal must lead to democratic renewal carries the same inherited scripts that demand personal trauma serve a greater purpose.
This belief is seductive because it gives us an illusion of control. If we can extract enough wisdom from our wounds, we can retroactively justify them. The neglected child becomes the independent adult. The betrayed person appreciates authentic relationships. The trauma survivor becomes the healer. The citizen who discovers institutional corruption becomes an activist for reform.
These narratives aren't false—but making this transformation mandatory creates a different kind of suffering.
Consider what happens when someone says, "I'm grateful for my depression because it taught me empathy." On the surface, this seems healthy. But notice what this statement requires: for the depression to have been worth it, the empathy must be valuable enough to justify the suffering that created it.
What if the empathy isn't enough? What if you'd rather have had an easier path to compassion? What if some experiences are harmful without being educational?
When we make pain productive, we put it to work. And anything that's working can never truly rest.
This insight about forced productivity would prove crucial when I encountered my own defensive patterns around harm—patterns that operated at both personal and institutional levels.
What I Learned About Harm and Response Patterns
One of the hardest truths I had to accept is that some of what happened in my childhood wasn't a teaching opportunity or a character-building exercise. Some of it was simply harmful—the kind of harm that shouldn't happen to children, regardless of what they might learn from it later.
This recognition hit me like a physical blow: our intentions do not erase the harm we cause, and wisdom gained from being harmed doesn't erase the harm either.
The emotionally unavailable parent still created wounds, even if they loved deeply. The child who learned independence doesn't invalidate the original need for security that went unmet. Both can be true—harm occurred AND something valuable was learned—without the second redeeming the first.
When we encounter harm—whether we've caused it or experienced it—we typically cycle through predictable patterns:
Denial – "That's not real harm."
Defensiveness – "But I'm a good person."
Despair – "I'm awful, I ruin everything."
These same patterns emerge with institutional betrayal: denial ("just a few bad actors"), defensiveness ("the system has good outcomes"), despair ("everything is hopeless").
These responses aren't character flaws—they're learned patterns responding from old conditioning. But they prevent genuine engagement with reality. When you're caught up in needing institutional betrayal to mean something hopeful, you can't see the betrayal clearly. When you're driven by the demand that trauma must have made you stronger, you can't feel what actually happened.
I started noticing this everywhere. When people insist that their pain must have made them better people, they're often unconsciously trying to solve a moral equation: if the harm led to good outcomes, then maybe it wasn't really harm. But this math doesn't work. Harm is measured by impact, not by the wisdom we extract from it afterward.
The same pattern showed up with institutional betrayal. Learning that the 13th Amendment's exception for "punishment for crime" simply outsourced slavery to prisons, my mind rushed to make this productive: "At least now I know!" "This knowledge will help me fight the system!"
But what if institutional betrayal is just betrayal? What if systematic oppression doesn't need to teach us anything to be recognized as harmful?
You might recognize that familiar feeling when someone says, "But look how strong it made you!"—as if strength were payment for suffering rather than what you developed to survive.
This same sickness emerges when institutions you revered operate through systematic deception. That nauseous recognition when you realize the social contract was performance, the costumes and rituals designed to legitimize predetermined outcomes serving institutional power.
The Practice of Radical Acceptance
Here's what I discovered: the difference between accepting what happened and redeeming what happened.
Redemption requires that suffering serve some greater good. It requires that hurt be justified by what it produced. Acceptance is different. Acceptance says: This happened. It was difficult. It had consequences that I still live with. And that's the whole story.
No lessons required. No growth necessary. No transformation demanded.
But here's the deeper recognition: even this capacity for acceptance isn't coming from your thinking mind. It's emerging from something that can witness all the automatic meaning-making without being consumed by it. Something that can observe the demand that pain must be productive while recognizing the absorbed conditioning underneath that drives the demand.
What this looks like in practice:
Noticing when you're trying to make pain productive. You might catch yourself asking: "What is this supposed to teach me?" That moment of recognition is the beginning of freedom. Ask yourself: does this come from genuine curiosity or from cultural programming that says suffering must be meaningful?
Asking different questions. Instead of "What is this teaching me?" try "What do I need now to deal with this effectively?"
Recognizing inherited scripts. When you insist that institutional corruption must lead to democratic renewal, pause and ask: Is this clear assessment of possibilities, or cultural programming about progress and reform? When you demand that personal trauma make you stronger, notice whether that's emerging from present awareness or inherited narratives about resilience.
Letting some experiences be exactly as pointless as they seem. Refusing to redeem every hurt with a lesson. This is rebellion against the cultural demand that all suffering be productive, that all disillusionment lead to engagement.
Seeking support for effects of harm without justifying the harm as valuable. Getting help because you need it, not because you've earned it through suffering.
Acknowledging that some systems are designed to harm. Some childhood experiences were harmful without being educational. Some institutions consistently enable oppression without teaching us about democracy. The justice system's corruption isn't a bug to be fixed—it's the feature it was designed to perform.
I learned to say: "My childhood was difficult, and sometimes I struggle with trust because of it." Not "My difficult childhood taught me to be discerning about relationships." The first statement acknowledges cause and effect without requiring gratitude. The second makes the harm responsible for producing value.
Notice the difference these framings create in your own body. One feels like truth; the other feels like performance.
For institutional betrayal, this meant saying: "The justice system operates through systematic corruption that serves power rather than people." Not "This corruption teaches us important lessons about the need for reform." The first is clear-eyed recognition. The second is forced meaning-making.
When I Stopped Making Everything Into A Story
I remember sitting on that same back porch months later, feeling something in my chest just... settle. Like a machine that had been running for years finally powering down. I was going through the same mental patterns, trying to squeeze more insight from old hurts, when something in me just... stopped.
I was tired. Tired of mining my childhood for wisdom. Tired of turning every difficult memory into a learning opportunity. Tired of having to justify my past by making it useful.
But what I discovered in that settling was that I wasn't giving up—I was stepping back from learned conditioning. Instead of being completely identified with the automatic demand that my pain be productive, I was recognizing it as cultural programming rather than truth. The insistence that my childhood must have made me stronger, more empathetic, more capable of helping others—that wasn't my authentic response. It was conditioning absorbed from a culture that equates worthiness with resilience, that can't tolerate the existence of suffering without purpose.
When I stepped back from that programming, space opened for a different response. Something that could simply acknowledge: Some things happened that were hard. They affected me. I'm dealing with those effects now. None of that requires gratitude for the original harm.
You might notice your own resistance to this idea. The part of you that wants to argue, to insist that surely every experience must teach us something valuable. That resistance itself is information—it's showing you how deeply you've internalized the belief that pain must be productive to be valid.
This resistance becomes even stronger with collective disillusionment. Learning that the justice system operates like professional wrestling, your mind rushes to find redemptive meaning: "At least this exposure will lead to reform!" "Maybe people will finally wake up!"
But notice what's generating these hopeful narratives. Is it clear assessment of what's possible, or learned patterns about democracy and reform? The impulse to insist institutional corruption must lead somewhere productive carries the same scripts that demand personal trauma serve a greater purpose.
What if institutional betrayal is just betrayal? What if systematic oppression doesn't need to teach us anything to be recognized as harmful? What if the most radical thing you can do with collective disillusionment is the same thing you can do with personal trauma—let it be exactly as senseless and damaging as it is, without demanding it serve a greater purpose?
Clear-Sightedness as the Foundation for Freedom
Clear-sightedness means seeing both the harm and our stories about the harm. It means recognizing when absorbed conditioning is driving our explanations, and choosing how to respond.
I learned to recognize when productivity conditioning had grabbed the microphone—the voice carrying generations of "worth equals achievement" messaging. Instead of being hijacked by it, I could observe: "This is the response that learned early that mistakes mean losing love. It's trying to motivate through shame because that worked when I was powerless."
This recognition didn't make the conditioning disappear, but it created choice. Instead of being driven by learned scripts about worthiness and resilience, I could develop a different relationship with these patterns.
The most profound shift wasn't making the need for meaning disappear—it was learning to recognize when I was trying to make pain productive, and choosing differently.
Instead of "What is this teaching me?" I started asking "What do I need now to deal with this effectively?" The first comes from programming that needs pain to be productive. The second comes from awareness that can respond to what's actually happening.
This changes everything. Instead of being a student of my own damage, I became a person working with the effects of things that happened long ago. Instead of mining my past for lessons, I could ask: What do I need now to live well with these effects?
How much energy would you have if you stopped turning pain into projects? How much space would open if you could recognize institutional corruption without immediately transforming that recognition into hope for reform?
The freedom isn't in controlling learned responses or making them disappear. It's in developing new relationships with the conditioning that moves through us. When you can hear the impulse that insists corruption must lead to renewal while recognizing the cultural programming behind that demand, different responses become possible.
What Becomes Possible
When you stop insisting that your pain be productive, something unexpected opens up. You can feel disappointment without immediately asking what it's teaching you. You can witness institutional corruption without rushing to transform it into wisdom. You can be human—messy, imperfect, sometimes in pain, living within systems that often serve power rather than people—without justifying every feeling through personal growth or political organizing.
This isn't emptiness. It's spaciousness.
Imagine waking up and difficult memories are just memories. Not homework. Not raw material for self-improvement. Just things that happened that you're dealing with now.
This same spaciousness becomes available when you stop trying to redeem institutional betrayals. You can acknowledge systematic corruption without immediately rushing to extract lessons about civic engagement. You can recognize that police have no legal duty to protect citizens without turning that recognition into a workshop on community organizing.
The relief comes from no longer having to make sense of senseless systems, no longer having to find hope in hopeless institutions.
You can seek therapy not to extract more lessons from old wounds, but to learn better ways of living with their effects. You can acknowledge systematic corruption without feeling compelled to spin it into a narrative of inevitable reform. You can get help because you need it, not because you've earned it through suffering.
I don't have to prove that my childhood made me stronger. I don't have to prove that institutional betrayal will lead to democratic renewal. I don't have to prove that everything happens for a reason.
I can just say: Some things happened that were hard. They affected me. I'm dealing with those effects now. Some systems are designed to cause harm. I can see that clearly now. And none of that requires me to extract wisdom or hope from the original damage.
Some experiences don't have to make you stronger to be valid. Some institutional failures don't have to teach us about democracy to be recognized as failures. Some pain doesn't have to serve a purpose to be acknowledged as real.
And maybe the most radical thing you can do with suffering—personal or collective—isn't to transform it into wisdom or strength or hope. Maybe the most radical thing is to let it be exactly what it was: harmful, unnecessary, and real, while still choosing to build a life that works despite it.
Not because of it. Despite it.
The question is not whether difficult experiences can produce valuable qualities—they often do. The question is whether we're willing to receive those qualities as unexpected gifts rather than demanded payment for suffering endured.
When you stop insisting that your pain be productive, something profound becomes possible: you can build a life based on what you want to create rather than what you need to justify.
This doesn't eliminate internal conflict. But it transforms it from civil war into conscious dialogue. When you can recognize the impulse that needs institutional betrayal to lead somewhere hopeful, you can appreciate its intention (protecting you from despair) while not being controlled by its demands. When you can hear the impulse that insists trauma must make you stronger, you can understand its history (cultural messaging about resilience) without being driven by its demands.
As you begin practicing this, you might notice resistance from others. People are uncomfortable when you don't wrap pain in pretty bows, when you don't find blessings or growth opportunities. They become more uncomfortable when you acknowledge systematic corruption without immediately offering hope for reform.
You'll learn to respond simply: "Some things just hurt. Some systems just serve power. That's okay to recognize."
There's no finish line. You'll do this again and again—every time your mind rushes to make pain productive, every time someone suggests you should be grateful for what shaped you, every time commentators insist that institutional failure is actually opportunity for renewal.
But each time you choose to let something be exactly as senseless as it is, you create a little more space to breathe. A little more room to respond from what's actually happening rather than from what you think should be happening.
Building Despite, Not Because Of
You can let some hurt be hurt without asking it to earn its place in your story through transformation. You can acknowledge the effects of difficult experiences without being grateful for the experiences themselves. You can recognize institutional corruption without having to transform that recognition into hope for systemic change.
You can create meaning that serves your actual life rather than meaning that serves absorbed conditioning about how life should work.
This is what radical acceptance offers: not the acceptance of what should have happened, but the acceptance of what did happen—both personally and collectively—without requiring it to have been worth it, without demanding it serve a greater purpose, without insisting it lead somewhere productive.
Sometimes personal trauma is just harmful and unnecessary. Sometimes institutional betrayal is just systematic oppression designed to serve power. Sometimes the most radical thing isn't to transform these realities into wisdom or hope, but to see them clearly while developing new relationships with the patterns that demand they mean something useful.
Let it hurt. Let it be senseless. Let it teach you nothing.
And discover what becomes possible when you stop asking your pain—personal and collective—to justify its existence through productivity.
That's where real freedom begins. Not freedom from learned responses, but freedom from being unconsciously controlled by them. Not freedom from meaning-making, but freedom to choose which meanings serve life rather than just serving psychological comfort.
You are not broken for experiencing internal contradiction when trusted systems reveal themselves as elaborate performances. The contradictions emerge from the collision between inherited programming and current reality. Learning to respond from awareness rather than reactivity isn't about becoming a better human—it's about developing new relationships with the conditioning that moves through you.
The gift isn't silencing the impulses that demand productive pain and hopeful conclusions. The gift is recognizing them as learned conditioning rather than absolute truths—and developing new relationships with the patterns that move through us.