The most beautiful people in the world are those who have suffered, been wounded, and tasted the bitterness of loss and grief, yet have embraced their wounds with courage and pride and written, themselves, the story of their life and their hero’s journey.

All of us carry wounds. One of the most courageous things we can do in life is to claim our wounds proudly as our own and place them at the centre of the heroic story of our lives. We can embrace our wounds lovingly, because they are both our wounds and our story.

The wound of young Pouria Alipour, who was brutally beaten during last year’s protests, is not only his wound. The wound he carries on his face, and courageously and proudly wears around his neck, is the wound of all of us: a wound filled with pain and at the same time an open aperture through which light can enter our collective and historical consciousness.

Aydin Areta