Journal Time!

Why? | April 26, 2023

Life is painful.

This is a rather obvious thing to say. It doesn't seem to upset many people as much as it should, though. Can you imagine the horrific struggle of everyday existence for so many people? Can you imagine how many bones are breaking, blood is dripping, hearts are pounding, eyes are leaking? This is not to mention disease, starvation, dehydration, cold, heat, death, or even just simple fatigue. Could you imagine what even a small fraction of all of humanity's suffering amounts to?

How could you possibly atone for all of that? All the love in the world could not possibly make that right. There is nothing you could do that could let you look them in their pleading eyes and say with honesty, "Your suffering hasn't been for nothing."

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Could we foresee it, there are times when children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned, not to death, but to life, and as yet all unconscious of what their sentence means.

- On the Sufferings of the World, Schopenhauer

Perhaps life would be better off if there were no life at all. Perhaps happiness is a sick joke that is utterly undone by the sheer volume of sadness and anger that its absence and destruction bring. Maybe the world would be better in a crystalline surface. What is the point of happiness if sadness is sure to crop up eventually? What is the point of life if death is sure to follow? What is the point of action if degradation will always undo it?

But, what if Schopenhauer was wrong? What if the point of happiness isn't to balance out suffering?

Sartre makes some odd points. We are abandoned by God: we are not driven by destiny nor any greater force outside of the ones we enact. We are in anguish over the total freedom that is afforded to us. More than anything, we despair before the world that we have no hope of changing significantly; all of the despair and displeasure that Schopenhauer identified resides in the world we see but cannot change.

But happiness is not antithetical to suffering. Happiness is painful, perhaps even inherently. There is no great big meter of all the world's suffering counteracted by the world's goodness; they live together.

Between wallowing in misery and letting suffering wash over yourself and trying to make the world a little happier for yourself and for others, which is a more pleasant existence? Sure, it does not change the world, and all the suffering would occur despite yourself. It's a tiny difference on the scale of the world, but it's worth trying for.

How can the world be meaningless if the world is all there is?

The weight of the world is not on your shoulders. You can barely hold up the weight of a small motley crew of people you care and think about. You don't even need to hold them up; you just have to try to make things a little better.

They will still suffer. They will still cry and scream and roar. But the little bit of happiness you can find in each other doesn't balance that out; it is something separate, a shelter from the rest of existence. Affording someone those little comforts, and letting others do the same for you, is worth getting out of bed for.