Why are we here? Just to suffer?
Likely not. In my view, suffering is something that humans should aim to either transcend and cope with healthily, such as consolation through faith, and/or accept in a stoic manner and build upon things to distract or help them deal with it. To wallow in suffering is a defeat of the spirit. Obviously, there are ways to cope with suffering that are not healthy, and lead to greater suffering in the long run, although one may have short-term relief from it.
We all have different levels of pain and hardships that we receive throughout our lives. As I see it, that is the greatest inequality, and that is something that will never change. As long as humans are born different from each other, there will always be an intrinsic inequality by circumstance.
For instance, one may develop a chronic condition early in life. Their life will be negatively impacted by it much more than a young person who does not have it, or develops it much later in life. Every human suffers, but it is impossible for everyone to suffer equally, and the way humans respond to suffering will be different as well.
The purpose of suffering is ultimately to know that something is wrong, whether it be about ourselves, our circumstances, what we are doing to someone else, and about what someone or something is doing to us.
There is an adverse reaction most humans have to imparting or witnessing certain types of suffering, unless they feel justified about why that suffering is occurring or why they are causing someone else suffering. This is irrespective of whether that suffering is just or not. For instance, one may feel horrified at seeing someone helpless being abused and mistreated, but not feel bad if someone were to commit a violent act of vigilantism upon the same abuser. That same abuser may not have any regret about the suffering that they have caused.
I could not say that suffering is the purpose of our existence, even if suffering has an important function. Nonetheless, the dynamics between suffering and its alleviation are a central part of every human society, and our existence itself. This is not to say that humans are always averse to suffering, or do not value sacrifice. Self-sacrifice may even alleviate suffering, both for the one who is making the self-sacrifice, and the one receiving it.
Regardless, the suffering of mankind has become more psychological than it has ever been. When humans were hunter-gatherers, their hardships were much more straightforward, as tough as they may have been to deal with. Staving off hunger, staving off cold, and most things related to their immediate survival. No bloated apparatuses to contend with or complex social hierarchies to navigate.
The concept of psychologically torturing themselves about an event on the other side of the world that they have no ties to is of no benefit to them, nor does it have any benefit for the modern human, no matter how terrible said event may be.
Humans were built to be socially local creatures. Although we may get to know new individuals from online, there is both a physical and social gap between you and someone who you know from online, who you have not meet. Extending this concept, our suffering is a local experience as well. We are meant to care the most about the sufferings we experience personally and see locally, and not as much abstract concepts another person or institution propagandizes you to care about. We cannot deal with what to us is intangible, like we can with things that are tangible. When something affects your day-to-day life, you care about that more than something very distant from you which you have no ties to, unless you are insane. And there certainly is a lot of insanity going around.
One may claim to care about their nation, but if they do not witness the sufferings of the nation themselves to a wide extent, such as traveling around the country, then they do not get much of an experience to understand it the fullest extent that they can (unless the country is very small). Even then, what goes on in their own community, and the residents of that community, will often have a greater formative impact then a place that they choose to tour.
One may also claim to care about the starving and impoverished on another continent, and merely have an abstracted notion of them existing, rather than the specific circumstances themselves. They see coverage and think it horrible, then they turn off the TV or livestream and forget about it shortly after, until the next time that they turn it back on.
In both cases, there is disconnect in the experiences in suffering. These are not right or wrong experiences – that is merely the innate nature of the receptiveness to suffering; judging what is an immediate concern and what is not. Of course, these experiences may be manipulated, and often are. Many believe that something is a problem that is not, or something that is not a problem is. This is simply because they are unwittingly instructed to, rather than what they’ve come up with on their own.
A soldier who goes to war and a civilian in a warzone have different experiences from those who follow the war on media and have their own perceptions of what it is. It may seem obvious, but this often this perspective is distorted. Having this distorted perceptive is not necessarily a question of politics – although certainly mass media skews this in a certain way significantly – as it is rather about this disconnect in suffering and the experiences behind it.
If you’ve had a condition that others don’t understand or treated you unfairly because of, you likely get this very well. Even those who attempt to emphasize are not you – they do not experience what you feel.
However, health conditions are just one component of human suffering. Despite each of us having our own subjective experience in suffering, camaraderie and sharing in it can bring us together, or tear us apart. Suffering fulfills a social function. There is no way to eliminate suffering, as surely there is no way to stop death.
As much as some things can bring one down, and as much as you may want to trade some of your own pains for those of others, understanding the nature of your own suffering is one of the most beneficial things for yourself than you can do. Understand the difference between something that causes you to suffer, which you cannot be rid of, compared to when you cause yourself to suffer without any purpose.
I stated earlier, the ultimate purpose of suffering is that something is wrong in your own life. Understanding it and managing it will tremendously affect the quality of your time on this earth. Know what you can control, and what you cannot, and respond accordingly.