Human Suffering:
Only twelve thousand years of history and a few million
as a species, humans have become the epitome of living organisms (or so we
think). We have invented, idealized, and observed almost everything that is to
be about the world, even outside of it. Concepts far removed from physicality
like dreams, justice, emotions, respect, suffering. We are the bane of our own
existence, however, merely through how we express and feel towards each other.
But why? Why do we torture ourselves into suffering? Why must we experience
such needless emotion? Where does this originate from? Is it the ever-looming
and unfathomable understanding of good and evil? Philosophers of the ancient
Greece have pondered endlessly to attain a definitive answer, and to no avail
as of present. It has been explored through the most serious of literary
genres: tragedy; it has shown us the exceptional and, at times, terrifying
nature of humans as we currently exist. Some say that the root cause of our
disdainful suffering comes from the Gods; these omnipotent, omniscient,
megalomaniacs who toy with human emotion in order to garner a sense of
superiority. Others say it is our fault for sinning and infuriating the Gods.
Is it truly an act of justice or is it our moral corruption deceiving us and
deluding us into thinking that there is an outside force to our agonizing pain
of existence?
Malice, narcissistic benevolence,
hatred, envy, greed, deceit, hopelessness, unilateral ideology, irrationality,
prejudice, and so forth. These words and more describe an initial feeling when
in the presence of suffering; terms that do not exist in the fauna, nor the
flora kingdom. It begs again the question: why? Why are we to be held in
between moral pain when no one else does? The mere act of questioning in itself
is but the beginning of suffering, so it must be our psyche who forces us to
this state, right? Who knows, for there is no concrete answer to a question
that harbors pain upon it.
While the Greeks tried to
question it, Christianity tried to solve what they did not understand. This
could easily be solved by one-sided justice, right? Good and Evil fighting;
where good is the solution and evil is suffering? The simple understanding and
nuance of these concepts go to show how problematic, and complex is our
suffering. It is not a fork road where you can choose which side of suffering
to take, but a dilemma in which there is, sometimes, no answer for it. There is
an inevitable sense to escape from pain and suffering, however, it is more than
that: we run, hide, fight, fear, and, at times, create it onto others when in
reality we should embrace not understanding the answer.
“It is not what it says, but
what you do with that information.” Sophocles thought that suffering comes from
the liberty humanity has of expressing themselves and how we choose to live our
lives. In his tragic works, he made the characters choose their way, find their
suffering some might say. He never had a preconceived idea to plaster, but a
means to expressing human nature and coming to understand why. Here is not a
matter of deities, but one of human recklessness. His most famous work, Oedipus
the King, forms a basic understanding of how man turns to suffering in one
play: ego and an immovable personal virtue.
Justice inside the concept
of tragedy and suffering is mostly mocked and satirized due to how biased it
becomes in the long run. It is, as stated above, the choice of one side or
the other in order to escape that feeling. Justice is especially parodied when
Gods are involved, for they become an unquestionable force with noticeable
inclinations, therefore a perfect subject to ridicule and insult. Personal
justice, on the other hand, makes for a moral approach to understanding
suffering, which makes it all the more painful to experience and explore.
Is it because we deserve justice or is it our innate desire to inflict upon
others what we felt is unjust and undesired?
The dichotomy of choice
could be the primary cause of our initial conflict, or it could also be metaphysical
forces like morality and the balancing of benefits. This is a false illusion with the freedom to pick. One cannot control every aspect or factor in order to
completely find a successful answer, nor one could balance every decision to
guide your way through the safe one. The ambiguity of morals in how we suffer
or how we choose is another aspect to which tragedians explored the human
psyche, delving deep into why we do our actions; some good, some evil,
ethically speaking.
Although there have been
many phases in human history where suffering was prevalent, most are attributed
to an aftermath, and not suffering at the moment. The primary cause would be war.
However, it must be emphasized that there are different types of suffering:
emotional and physical distress. Usually characterized but pain, anxiety, disorientation,
melancholy, et cetera.
In literature, suffering is
often depicted as a means to redemption, a necessary concept for either the
hero or the villain in order to further development or the plot. The hero needs
to suffer in order to find a raison d’tre, a motive to overcome that hurt.
While the villain, on the other hand, has a suffering where they could not
overcome and swear vengeance on it, making those that made him suffer to feel the
same. The acceptance of whether some actions of just or not, and the
understanding of that suffering, brings forth different sides to what is
suffering in general; facets that show how complex the art and nature of
suffering can be. In the hero’s journey, a guide on how to write good heroes,
there is always an ordeal in which he must cross to achieve the ultimate goal
of the adventure.
The other side of literature
refers to suffering not to overcoming nor confronting but accepting and, at
times, just suffering for the sake of suffering. It is rare to find these for
they are unpopular, but when found they show human despair on a deep and
personal level. These are mostly found in contemporary literature, like
Dostoevsky and Kafka, with how they put a character through rigorous scenes. Not
intending to find an answer to that pain, but letting the character suffer and
learn.
One aspect that is
overlooked in suffering is betrayal. It can easily become the sole reason for
suffering; the careless disregard of others’ feelings can create a massive
sense of despair and pain. That loss in trust, everything that was worked on,
crumbling in mere seconds to false hope.
On the topic of Deities,
suffering is either our fault or the work of pleasure for the superior. The
example in Christianity is the flood: you disobeyed and follow your own will;
therefore, I will send upon you rain that will kill everyone and drown the
sinners. On the Greek side, there is Zeus punishing Medusa for being violated
without her consent: her punishment was that she could not be seen by others
for they would turn to stone. There is no winning against Gods for they are the
all-mighty rulers of the universe and anyone that opposes is destined to
suffer. It is the rare occasion that we see the infliction of pain onto others
with the express desire to hurt, and not for justice’s sake.
The Greeks may not have
found an answer, but they did find something close to it: learning from that
suffering. To learn from suffering is to understand what, how, when, where,
who, and sometimes the why; it is not always necessary, but it cleanses one’s
consciousness when arriving at a conclusion on a painful process.
There are various origins to
why we suffer, and some are not mentioned, it is the reason why there are
different types of suffering to feel. To summarize what has been discussed:
suffering, an innate human desire to feel pain, is either inflicted upon us or
by our own hands; it has been theorized and explored extensively through
tragedy, that there is an inherent need to understand it due to our nature of
reasoning the unreasonable. There is no real answer, but an individual and
personal one. Suffering can mean injustice, while it could also mean vengeance
or disdain. When there is a difference in definition, there are differences in
meaning to a concept.
“"We are threatened with suffering from three
directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and
which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the
external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless
forces of destruction; and finally, from our relations to other men. The
suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful than any
other.”
-Sigmund Freud