Life is an experimental journey undertaken involuntarily. It is a journey of the spirit through the material world and, since it is the spirit that travels, it is in the spirit that it is experienced. That is why there exist contemplative souls who have lived more intensely, more widely, more tumultuously than others who have lived their lives purely externally. I have lived so much without ever having lived. I have thought so much without ever having thought. I feel weighed down by worlds of unenacted violence, of stillborn adventures. I am sick of what I never had nor will have, weary of gods always just about to exist. I bear on my body the wounds of all the battles I did not fight. My muscles are weary from efforts I never even considered making... Life is whatever we make it. The traveller is the journey. What we see is not what we see but who we are.
You can find this poetic passage in Fernando Pessoa's beautiful book -- The Book of Disquiet.
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Without ever being hurt, we can never heal and it’s in the healing that we grow.
We are the poem. Love it.