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.
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I go with the buddhist thing. suffering is when we don’t get what we desire. It a bit tricky because things that are common or normal we don’t think about desiring until we don’t have them. People want to be safe and healthy and free and we can’t have this is various ways and when we can’t even have the slightest bit its way worse.
Life. Life itself is suffering. Life is the worst thing to have happened to anyone.
Regarding purpose, no one has any purpose. Purpose is assigned to tools; not to sentient beings with consciousness. Life is utterly meaningless, and it is due to this lack of meaning, that we search for superfluous things like purpose.
The true nature of life is suffering. The default state of life is pain. Everything you do from there is just to temporarily alleviate that pain. You keep doing that until you die.
We have friends and lovers because loneliness is painful. We eat because hunger is painful. We sleep because deprivation from it is painful. We laugh so that we can escape from crying.
People say suffering is a hurdle, and see it as something essential for character development, and whilst I acknowledge the essentiality of some types of pain, I also see it as something contingent on life. We suffer because we are alive. All sentient and conscious beings suffer. It just comes with life.
Note that I am not however, promoting termination of life. By terminating your life early, you would be depriving yourself of all the potential pleasures you could have had (regardless of the pain around them). Once you are here, your optimization problem should be maximization of pleasure and minimization of pain. So, whilst the asymmetry still exists, the potentiality for pleasure might (/should?) be enough of an reason to continue living. I do acknowledge that exceptions do exist where the asymmetry is so skewed for some, to the extent that there is little to no potential pleasure for them, in which case, it might be preferable for them to terminate their own life (think extremely painful chronic/terminal illnesses). I’m sorry if this feels a bit loosey-goosey.
With all that said, I believe we are all sufferers from the incurable disease of life. And the only thing to do from here is to vehemently struggle and rebel against suffering. To help our fellow sufferers and maximize the pleasurable moments. To do everything we can to cope with life whilst still being aware of the true suffering it stands for.
That is a very bleak perspective. By this logic, we can say that everything ever is meaningless.
Life of itself is not meaningless. It exists to test, create, and replicate patterns at a faster time scale than the regular processes of the universe. Meaning is usually assigned after the fact. Or at least that’s my experience.
I somewhat agree with you. The meaning you describe seems personal (correct me if I am wrong), i.e. we assign meaning to our own lives. The meaning I was referring to in my previous comment was a more absolute take on it; the kind of meaning people refer to when they are searching for it. From my perspective, people search for an all encompassing absolute meaning (or rather a guidebook) which tells them that they are here for something. I disagree with that perspective, and I think there is no such meaning or guidebook. We are not here for any grand purpose, we just exist because someone else got together and thought it’d be nice to be a parent (in the best of situations). I agree with you however, in that, we must assign meaning to our own lives, just so our lives won’t feel empty. It is more like drawing your own scenery on a canvas instead of looking for the perfect one.
I understand that this is a bleak perspective, but I see this as the true nature of suffering; and by acknowledging it, we can be more compassionate to our fellow sufferers. Although the perspective itself is bleak, the conclusion need not be. You can learn to live, stuff your life with pleasurable moments, and make the most of it, whilst helping others do the same.
I completely respect your perspective. But I do believe there is a meaning to life itself. Not just what we assign it. Even if there was no initial goal in life becoming a thing, now that it exists, it is tefined by its attributes. Evolution. Progress. Concentration of energy and resources. Engines of anti-entropy. That is the meaning of life. To me. It is the universe calling out to save itself from certain doom. That is the goal now. Survival. On an ultimate scale. But that is just my philosophy. I do not claim that it is the objective truth. But I do believe that it is the truth.
This doesn’t really explore the concept of suffering. Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
The true nature of suffering is the repetion of mistakes and the observence of the patterns that lead to those mistakes and being concious of the caused sufferung but being powerless and unable to stop it.
That seems more like futility than suffering. Futility is definitely a part of “suffering”, but I do not think it is the essence. There’s also the perception. If someone keeps making the same mistake and doesn’t notice, they do not suffer like the person who does notice.
But thank you for contributing your perspective.
What greater suffering could there be but futility- suffering for nothing?
Yes, exactly, that is what I’m trying to find out here. Is it really just that? It can’t be just that, because it is possible to be happy and fulfilled in a meaningless, futile pursuit. Let’s remember that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy”.
I define suffering the same way I define art:
- I know it when I see it
- I can look at someone’s suffering, call it suffering, while some pretentious jagoff next to me goes, “Pff, that’s not suffering. You clearly don’t know what real suffering is.”
- Some suffering I like, some suffering I don’t.
- I had to go to school to learn about other people’s suffering.
- Some of us hide our suffering and some display it
- Some people use their suffering to make money
- I tried to show other people my suffering and they laughed at it. So I don’t show people my suffering anymore.
So is it subjective in your view?
And could you explain what you mean by “Some suffering I like, some suffering I don’t.”? I don’t exactly understand that one?
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.
It’s a word made by humans.
The descriptor is not the essence. Do you look at an image and say that it is the thing it represents?
I mean you can interpret so much into that word if you want… it’s just self-destruction wallowing in Weltschmerz. That’s not philosophical, that’s depression
You can’t just say that the essence of suffering is “the big sad”. These are all aspects.
And what is so depressing here? I really don’t understand. Is it that talking about suffering makes people sad? Is that how empathy works? This is a genuine question. I do not feel uncomfortable or sad talking/hearing about tragedy or suffering. I understand the feelings, but I don’t feel them. That’s why I would never link the philosophical discussion of suffering and depression.
Unless your point is that depression and suffering are linked? If that is the case, then I fully agree. One can cause the other, both ways.
