You can help someone who is suffering without using force. Force is needed to bear the weight of the stretcher.
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"Open your eyes and look for someone who needs a little of your attention, your time, your friendly disposition, your company, your work, your knowledge. Don’t refuse this extra task, which allows you to feel like a human being among other people. This is your destiny, unless you truly don’t want it" (Albert Schweitzer, Reverence for Life). ❗
"If you want this, then you are already grown up" (City 312).
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Related text on a personal website: “Strength and light, house and darkness”.
"The strong is not the one who strikes, but the one who endures the blow" (Ludub Ochirov).
"We all belong to the clan of the wounded; we all have our own painful scar" (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves).
"Only a wounded healer can heal" (C. Jung).
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Questions about this article
01What does true strength look like?
True strength is not shown by striking someone weaker, but by withstanding the blow yourself while still being able to support others. Strength is needed not to “finish off the wounded,” but to bear the weight of the stretcher—to help, support, and give your time, work, and attention.
02What does it mean to “belong to the clan of the wounded”?
The “clan of the wounded” is an image used by Clarissa Pinkola Estés in Women Who Run with the Wolves: every person has a painful scar, so woundedness is part of the shared human experience. It resonates with Jung’s image of the “wounded healer”: lived pain can deepen our ability to understand, support, and help others. To belong to the “clan of the wounded,” then, is to belong to humanity itself.