The Philosophy of Suffering
Suffering is not the problem — our perception of happiness is.
Suffering is universal to all beings on this earth — every living being can suffer. But suffering differs radically from species to species.
Human suffering is arguably very different from animal suffering — not because of its intensity or the damage it causes, but because of the awareness of it. We humans can reason and think in abstract terms, so we can also reason about our suffering. And our general reasoning is that we hate suffering. May it be physical or emotional suffering, there is nothing which we try to avoid more than suffering. We built houses to stop having to suffer in the cold and wet. We developed medicine to stop having to suffer pain. We invented consumerism to stop having to suffer meaninglessness.
There is nothing we stop at to avoid suffering. We even inflict other pain on us to make one specific instance of suffering go away!
But what is so bad about suffering?
The problem does not lie with suffering, but with happiness — a light part of our culture.
We have been conditioned to believe that happiness is the ultimate goal in life. And the second we are unhappy we are being told that we are doing something wrong or that our…
