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.

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.

We probably have to go back to Fiona Apple’s 19th year in this vale of tears to find a teen singer so darkly self-aware.