A man named Coulson Kernahan once related a remarkable dream-allegory called “The Man of No Sorrows.”
A prophet from the orient arrived in London and announced that he was the savior of the world. What made him stand out was his proclamation that sorrow and pain have no place in the universe. He declared that human society will never be saved until sorrow is discredited.
The people eagerly accepted this teaching, as you might imagine, and tears and sorrow were banished from human society.
Years passed. All suffering was repressed; all sorrow was denied. But an interesting result occurred--human beings gradually became more selfish. Sympathy ceased to exist; the very word was deleted from the dictionary. No poets were born. Poets, you see, are the children of pain, who learn by suffering what they teach in song. Music and painting were no longer practiced, for they, too, are enriched by the full spectrum of the human experience. The loss of these arts eventually drives the people to despair. And in their rage they turn on the man of no sorrows, the new prophet from the orient, and drive him out, turning once again to the teaching of Jesus that he who suffers most has most to give.
Nashville: Abingdon Press, A Word in Season, by John Bishop