Wikipedia will tell you that it is pain and unpleasantness. But that is too shallow. That isn’t true suffering. To me, suffering is when thoughts start causing physical pain. When the prospect of death seems like the only escape. But sometimes not even death can stop suffering.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. What is the nature, the purpose of suffering. And then, it hit me. Maybe the lack of a purpose is the problem? It is easier to take pain when we know when it will end, or when we know that it is a pain of healing. But when it is a destructive pain, or suffering without a purpose, then it is true suffering. Pain for the sake of pain, where nothing is gained and everything is lost. Is that the nature of suffering? I don’t know. I can’t say that I experienced true suffering on that level. I don’t think anyone has. Or at least they haven’t lived long enough to tell the tale.
Is being stuck upside down in a cave until you slowly die, knowing nobody will come to rescue you true suffering? Is being a victim of a terrible crime and not being able to ever get justice for it true suffering? Or is it something simpler?
I was never good with words. So please don’t blame me if I can’t fully define it. That is exactly why I ask this question. I invite you all to discuss the essence and the nature of suffering with me. I wish to understand.
DISCLAIMER: This is a philosophical question. Nothing more, nothing less.
I tend to agree with Wikipedia. Pain is tricky, some can be enjoyable in certain contexts, so you are right that it’s a response to the stimulus more than the physical sensation.
But combined with “unpleasantness” it’s spot on. When I get a migraine I am suffering even if I try to adjust my mind to accept it differently, it’s unpleasant no matter how I slice it. It’s one of the feelings humans seem wired for.
No offense, but you are like the third person to bring masochism into the discussion. What’s up with that? Just because someone “can find pain enjoyable” doesn’t mean that “suffering” means something else to them.
Or am I mistaken on that?
It’s just a physical sensation, and amplifies my pleasure during sex, adds intensity in a good way, I’m surely not alone in that. So to me, it’s not simply the physical sensation of any pain that is suffering, since some amount is pleasurable. It’s not just a sex thing though, presumably you like spicy food, that involves some level of pain but is enjoyable.
Unpleasantness combined with pain causes me to suffer.