Context and the total picture: Part I

Sometimes a painful experience doesn’t feel quite so bad when we learn that other people, some very well known, have had a similar experience.

One example comes from the life of the artist Pauline Baynes, best known for her illustrations of the Narnia books.

Her family broke up when she was five years old. She returned to the UK from India with her mother. She was sent to a convent school where she was given a hard time by strict, unsympathetic nuns because of her fantastical imagination, her unusual handmade clothes and her ability to speak Hindi.

She later learned that Rudyard Kipling, whose work she greatly admired, had as a boy been sent back from India to a place where he was treated badly. Learning that she was not alone, that she was in very good company, made her feel a little better.

Then there was Napoleon, reduced to living on crumbs of hope in exile. Anyone who knows what subsisting on remote possibilities is like might well feel a little better or even gratified when they learn that they have something in common with the great emperor. 

However, putting painful experiences into the context of other people’s lives in this way can be a two-edged sword.