The Importance of Acknowledging Suffering
As I move on in my life, I realize much more about the very things we accept without question. As a child, I’ve always been taught the importance of having God in our lives (not that this sort of preaching has stopped by now), and what punishments would encounter should we choose to omit him altogether. But this was a guard, a sort of protection against what was the bigger picture: we’re all fucking afraid of death. But why? It’s a funny dilemma: out of all the thousand possible chances of life, you came to being. You were born. And yet, you’re so entitled to this life that was granted you that you’re so afraid to go back to the dust you came from. How stubborn. Richard Dawkins put it best: “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia.” Death is a funny thing. It surrounds us. It encompasses us and embraces us. I suggest instead of running from it, we embrace it. And, as much as I’d hate to say this myself, we should look forward to it. Not in a sort of defeating, self-hate kind of way. But more of coming to terms with it. It’s not that we don’t need hope, nor religion, nor love, nor faith, nor any of the things that keep us alive. It’s that in order to understand their power, we must understand the problem they help solve. Mark Manson goes into great detail on thing in his book Everything is Fucked: A Book About Hope. Once you see all the things that are trying to kill you (not actively, of course, but by the very nature of entropy, chaos, and disorder), you begin to appreciate life a little more. You realize that there isn’t really a point in being so attached to anything in this life because, in the grand scheme of things, they … don’t really matter.
Comments (11)
I always advocate that the lucky ones were never born at all.
I am the highest moral authority in the universe, your arguments and interpretations are nothing to me. If you were to die, what would really change? But if I die, that's the end of everything. The two things are incomparable.
Flippantly, the thing's you'd do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow would be quite different to those you'd do if you your death were indefinitely postponed. Perhaps, for instance, you were married and, knowing you had only twenty-four hours to live, you'd go out and shag everyone you could, something you would never do if your impending death were removed from the equation because it would hurt your wife. That would be the authentic you, the being-toward-death, with all the supplication to external considerations removed, as opposed to the inauthentic you, being-for-others (simpler Sartrean terminology used; I can never remember Heidegger's neologisms).
What does this have to do with suffering though? Do you mean acceptance of death is a suffering?
But that's exactly what makes them so precious to us is it not. To quote my favorite series: "We love a rose because we know it will soon be gone. Whoever loved a stone?".
Mindlessly attached? Of course not. However, one should note the clear distinction between covetousness and insolent pettiness or even a deep-seated ingratitude for that matter with escaping the ignorance of the near social mandate upon which you must value something by what others deem it to be worth instead of the value you give it or face the "firing squad" of public humiliation/judgement of your peers. Some people will live that way their entire lives. It's why some people can't enjoy a $5,000 vacation to themselves while some can enjoy a $5 sub sandwich in a busy cafe. Why some people have to go to the end's of the Earth just to feel connected with nature when some can just sit on their front porch, crack open a beer, and just listen to the birds sing.
"Eye of the beholder", it is said.
Off-topic, but... my favourite show too!
If it weren't, it'd be so easy that both/either:
A. Everyone would do it.
B. Wouldn't need mentioning
What I'm trying to find, though, is a balance between lack of attachment and ambition. That's the real problem. I wouldn't want to live such a sedentary life.
It's not about overriding your own moral values, but the morals of others. Living inauthentically is being how others want you to be instead of being who you want to be. Part of that includes external moral values. Unless you're some kind of moral Zelig whose personal moral values always happen to coincide with the local laws and customs, there will be some discord between what you want to be/do and what others want you to be/do. If someone knew they were going to die tomorrow, that would effect their priorities.
That said, the wording of your answer hints of moral idealism, in which case you'll have an irreconcilable view.
Quoting Abdul
That wasn't the question. I'm asking you about the nature of the "suffering" in the title of this thread.
Death casts its shadow over life, life is a dream to be forgotten.
The meaning of things isn't to be dictated or negotiated, the finality of death and the destruction of everything can be interpreted in a million ways. There is no meaning to happiness, pleasure or satisfaction and no meaning to virtue, heroism or great accomplishments. I could be less than nothing or more than everything.
Partly decisions to be made but sometimes it's just what we are as humans.
Here's a metaphor, my philosophy might be 1+1 = 3 and nihilism is the rejection of mathematics, without mathematics, there's no compelling rejection to my philosophy, I am the master and I decide all.