vale of tears

It is but a short step from viewing life as a vale of tears to calling modern medicine junk science and mandatory seat belt use an oppression by the Safety Nazis.

It always happens so in this vale of tears, there is an inevitability about such things which we can only wonder at, deplore, and bear as we best can.

I was repeatedly reminded that life is a vale of tears but you keep moving forward anyway and offer up any suffering for the poor souls in purgatory.

With my kids, I de-emphasized the “vale of tears” and “poor souls” bits, but I have tried to teach them to focus on what they can control — themselves and their actions — rather than what they can’t: other people and theirs.

So I think that portraying the world as a vale of tears and portraying the world in a way in which aggression becomes the default position and where people talk to one another in snarls, is to me a curious view of life.