Is there utility to suffering?

TomFetter said:
As it's Lent, I've ben thinking a bit 'bout this. Does suffering have a purpose?

What do you think?

t.
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I think suffering, in and of itself can only have a "purpose" if an individual voluntarily takes that suffering upon him/herself, for whatever reason.

Andy
 
I won't attempt to speak of universal truths. I'll leave that to smarter men than myself. But I will talk about what I have taken as life lessons taught through suffering. When my wife was having flashbacks from being raped and took a bunch of pills I realized exactly how important she is to me. I consider myself very fortunate. I will not take her for granted and realize how much she means to me only at the very end of our lives. I know exactly how much she means to me right now.

From suffering, both my own and the suffering of those close to me, I have learned empathy. Because sometimes people don't want your sympathy, they want to talk to some one who understands. Much of my undertsanding has come from suffering.

From suffering I have learned that I'm stronger than I thought I was. That my marriage is much stronger than most of our friends and relatives thought it would be. We have endured events that have split other couples. I now know we can handle tough times.

Sometimes I hear people gripe about the smallest things. Suffering puts it all in perspective. I've been cold, broke and hungry. A ding in the old Mazda or a rip in my jacket is not going to send me into a tizzy. I owe these life lessons to suffering.

In a spiritual context I believe the hardship in my life is Karma. Lessons I didn't learn the last time around must be learned now or they will be repeated next time 'round.

Universal truth? I guess that's up to the universe to decide.

Frank
 
SilverFoxKnows said:
sometimes people don't want your sympathy, they want to talk to some one who understands.

all too true.

We have endured events that have split other couples.

invaluable knowledge.

Sometimes I hear people gripe about the smallest things. Suffering puts it all in perspective. I've been cold, broke and hungry. A ding in the old Mazda or a rip in my jacket is not going to send me into a tizzy. I owe these life lessons to suffering.

you're an excellent example
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i have 'tough guy' friends who throw a fit over the smallest things. theyr'e ready to start swinging on any occasion, even honest mistakes. it's like a child's tantrum. a tough guy should have thick skin. he gets it from knowin it could be worse, usually by experience.
 
Suffering has quite a few purposes for me.

Firstly, it acts as a counterpoint to happiness/pleasure. Suffering teaches me what I really do have that I can be happy about, and gives me perspective. Unfortunately, I don't always remember that perspective.

Secondly, and I don't know whether this is specific to me, but I find that when I'm suffering, I sometimes have this "clarity" which opens my eyes. Not quite in the sense that you suddenly notice the pole you just walked into, but in other ways as well.

Third, and I really don't expect many people to agree with me on this one, one of those moments of clarity gave me the following:
From pain, strength.
From pain, endurance.
From pain, destruction.

Sometimes it's just physical (exercise), but whenever I've been mentally or emotionally suffering, it pushes me closer to God, and for that I am grateful, and now I can even recognise it when I'm suffering, which helps me keep some semblance of a positive view.

Fourth, suffering has also taught me to be less reliant on this world, I've lost a lot of things, some material, some human, I've been hurt by a lot of things, and it's taught me that I can still live without them even though it may still hurt (I'm sure almost, if not all, of you remember your first love), and still live, even with the pain I've been through. While I might still feel sorrow at some of the more important losses, I know that I'm still going, that my spirit will stay alight until my time comes.

Fifth and finally, it's taught me to accept what comes, while I'm not going to go looking for suffering, if suffering comes, I'm going to face it, and if circumstances demand that I suffer, I will suffer rather than run, if need be. Perhaps that's altruism speaking, if so, it's something I still need to learn more of.
 
Th232 said:
it's taught me to accept what comes.
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A few years ago I had a conversation with a group of survivors from various Nazi camps in Poland and Eastern Europe. The living conditions and experiences they described to me sounded about as bad as it gets on this planet.

In spite of this, one guy told me that as bad as it was, not every day seemed like a bad one. Like a bad smell, once you get used to the horrendous a thing that is slightly less horrendous seems "good."

On the other hand, another one of them told me that he now knows you don't have to die before going to heaven or hell. He said he experienced Hell on earth, and is now experiencing Heaven.

Apparently suffering enhances adaptability in some and appreciation in others. Maybe both.
 
I believe the earth- and indeed, the universe- is a self-leveling mechanism.

On the global scale, a world war is keeping the human population in check. On an individual scale, each death is a tragedy, or must surely seem so.

This self-maintaining propensity of the universe could be called balance. Some might call it justice. My sole element of faith is that what should happen, does happen.

In a place where an individual deity watching over everything is considered, this could seem callous. Without some entity, it seems less so: the buffets and winds and trials are not personally aimed. There's just life.

And life is.

John
 
I wouldn't say a world war is keeping the population in check. Not even aids can do that yet.

I'm not sure about this, but aren't female birth rates up- daughters born in the US? That could be an ominious sign.


munk
 
Suffering is fun. It has more drama than TV. Plus, you get to be the star. :)

At least that's what I tell myself. :(
 
Sometimes when the suffering is temporarily gone I surprise myself. "Oh yeah," I say to myself, "I'm supposed to be in pain. Why am I not in pain?"

People who've spent time in Jail and time in war look upon a boring civilian life as gravy. It's all gravy. Imagine just going to work for 8.5 hours and coming home every night to a TV. There are walls around you and no one is trying to kill you. You're safe. You can laugh at a MASH rerun. You can drink a beer and stay up late, stay till the movie ends at midnight. When you get up the next morning your'e tired, but it's a good tired.


munk
 
munk said:
Sometimes when the suffering is temporarily gone I surprise myself. "Oh yeah," I say to myself, "I'm supposed to be in pain. Why am I not in pain?"

People who've spent time in Jail and time in war look upon a boring civilian life as gravy. It's all gravy. Imagine just going to work for 8.5 hours and coming home every night to a TV. There are walls around you and no one is trying to kill you. You're safe. You can laugh at a MASH rerun. You can drink a beer and stay up late, stay till the movie ends at midnight. When you get up the next morning your'e tired, but it's a good tired.


munk
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Or, one can become bored with things being too easy.

In some recent polls it was shown that most people think we have it far too easy and that we take things for granted. I think this is true, but I also think that most of us don't really have any idea what true suffering is.

It hasn't been so long in human history that the average lifespan was in the 70's, that death in child birth for women became a rarity, that people die suffering from Alzheimer's rather than broken bones.

If we look back at a time before antibiotics, before the combustion engine, before the machine-gun.... we also had a greater number of Renaissance thinkers, evidently.

Many people long for simpler lives, lots simpler. They yearn to live off the land as farmers, subsistence living. Handicrafts, barter systems, and homespun clothing.

Believe it or not. I guess that means most people want more suffering in their lives, or it could be they just haven't thought that far into it.

Andy
 
I was a lot more impressed with Thoreau living simply on his personal settlement until I found out his relatives brought him cookies and treats daily.



munk
 
Andrew Colglazier said:
I guess that means most people want more suffering in their lives, or it could be they just haven't thought that far into it.
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thought has been circulating for decades discriminating a clear division between the mechanical and the organic. people are universal particulars of one great organism called humanity and each of us demonstrates our humanity as individuals. Rousseau, Emerson, Tillich, Wilshire, tons of writing about it. anyway, we're supposedly living mechanistic lives, detached from our true nature and deep down we hunger be organic once again, to suffer as the human animal should. many don't feel the pains because they're so deeply addicted to the mechanistic that all they can think of is gettin more of their fix, propagating the downward spiral. still, when it comes to goin back, you're probably right that we haven't thought it through.
 
"Pain is God's megaphone," CS Lewis.

"People are motivated equally by pleasure and pain," Anthony Robbins

"God never works on one person at a time,"


We need to diferentiate between suffering and sacrifice.
 
I have long known that the Noble Savage is a myth.

The savages I see in this country would trade their life for yours in an instant.
 
I dont think there is much utility in suffering...maybe it is supposed to be keeping you from reapting your mistakes - but that doesnt keep *me* from making the same mistakes over and over again. Dont trust your heart. Dont trust people. Never.
 
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