wisdom from the wound

When, as a child you receive childish knocks, scraping your knee, elbow, forehead, scabs eventually form, which, if cultivated through rigorous, almost religious picking then turn to scars.  During adolescence these scars can be counted alongside real scars from real accidents where depth and width of the cut mean there is no outcome but scars that are mean and ugly, showing adventure, danger, stupidity or bravery in your life.

As an adult the 'scar competition' still exists and can win or lose you a place in your social group for a limited time.

If you have a scar of bravery, that scar + story, may detract people's attention from your obvious pig-headedness, or a scar from an operation may gain sympathy for an otherwise aggressive person.

All scars are an event.  Chicken-pox will leave a scar and you may not remember the almost agonising itching that caused the blemish, but you may remember the time spent with your parent or sibling during the illness.

When faced with a scar on another person, how long before you ask “what happened?"  Because eventually you will, it is a 'must know' situation, you need the knowledge, so you can judge the quality, gauge sympathy, understand that persons' history, gain wisdom from the wound. 

So each event scars our emotional tissue and is sometimes as visible as a scar on the face, by the way we behave.

Abandonment leaves us scared of being left alone, or not wanting to make bonds for fear of receiving another tear on our heart.

Violent behaviour may make us aggressive or timid; whichever saved us from the violence the last time.

Ridicule can become a barrier to our opinions and some people spend their whole life only asking questions, never answering, never revealing their thoughts or feelings or trying new experiences, going first or making new mistakes.

Heart break, or unrequited love scars run deep and can act as seriously as a disease which has left a scar of disability on the person.  An accident can blind you, maim you, leave you deaf or affect your sensibilities.  Heart break can do the same, it can blind you to new love, stop you from hearing kind words, keep you on the edge of groups, disallow you from progress.

How do you gain wisdom from your wounds?