To Be Alive Is to Suffer
Jim Babka on Jul 30th 2008
I recently read an article, that was really an excerpt from the book, “Paterno: By the Book,” where the legendary Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno, explains what discovering Virgil’s Aeneid meant to him as a person and a football coach.
Paterno’s take on the mythical Aeneas’ trials really spoke to me. Aeneas had to suffer. Virgil provides his reason for why this suffering had to occur.
For the last several years I’ve been “wasting” lots of time reading and contemplating metaphysics, philosophy, and theology. I’m an untrained amateur at all three, so what I write here might be a total mess. This is the first time I’ve publicly shared any of these thoughts, though I’ve addressed one narrow aspect of theodicy in these blog pages. I am hesitant to do so because I realize many readers think metaphysics is no better than astrology. Perhaps I’m deluded.
The metaphysical point of view that appeals to me most is basically some kind of personalism, grounded in something akin to process philosophy/theology. And my own take on the Universe, if one can be so bold as to have such a thing, is that it is made up of two constituent parts . . .
1) Relationship — One thing relates to another, one person to another. The Universe is personal, and we’re aware of other personalities and effects because of our proximity to and contact with those things. From everything we can tell, humans, in comparison to other beings in the Universe, have the deepest understanding of relationship. And love is our highest form of intimate understanding. Love is also the thing most humans crave the most. We give ourselves away: It’s the primary theme of our arts. Evil, which is disregard for others to the point of causing harm to them, however minimal that harm may be, is the opposite of love. The ancient Hebrews were taught that the entire law was summed up in just two thoughts. Love God. Love others.
2) Suffering — Including ideas like prices, sacrifice, consequence, reward, incentive, pain, pleasure, delayed gratification, investment, having one’s cake or eating it, and, of course, death. Everything has a cost! When an individual’s ability to suffer is removed, well, everyone else suffers and the individual’s pleasure disappears. We call it moral hazard. It’s why prices are necessary and large intrusive governments are harmful. Without consequences, free will is amoral and probably impossible. And without reward, why struggle? Why risk? Why love?
These two things, Relationship & Suffering, are, in my humble opinion, the warp and woof of the universe. You might be able to mix-in something about natural law and/or mathematics into that fabric as well — though it might be the case that relationship and suffering ARE THE natural law.
Now it’s hard to explain a metaphysic in a paragraph or two, but that wasn’t my point. I’m merely introducing the notion that I think suffering is a very important, and dare I say, a valuable part of our Universe.
And I believe one’s attitude about relationships and towards suffering matters. Personally, I am a work in progress in my relationship to suffering itself. Even here in 2008, I’m discovering benefits in what others merely perceive as unwanted trouble. And I’ve come to believe that the most important service provided by religion is a method to deal with suffering. The “truly suffering” frequently embrace spirituality. The well-off tend to drift away from it.
Anyway, here’s what Paterno wrote about suffering that so interested me . . .
Destiny, the fatum, or the inner voice, tells you where you have to wind up and what you’re destined to do, but it doesn’t tell you how to get there or how to do it…
Aeneas cannot choose not to found Rome; he’s destined to create it. But he as to wrestle with himself, inch by inch, hour by hour — play by play! — to figure out how to _endure_ the struggle and torment of doing it, and take all the bad breaks along the way.
As I sat there, an impressionable, twentieth-century seventeen-year-old, I wasn’t really swallowing Virgil’s brand of fatalism. But I sensed him speaking to me with a broader and deeper kind of truth.
It was terrifying that Aeneas’ beloved Troy had to be destroyed. But what I absorbed as we read was that the founding of Rome had a cost — Troy’s defeat and Aeneas’ years of torment. No accomplishment comes without suffering. Humanum est pati. “To be alive is to suffer.” Virgil wasn’t saying something as simple-headed as “No pain, no gain.” That implies you can choose between suffering and taking life easy. To Virgil, nobody gets to choose not to suffer.
And nobody is guaranteed a reward, a victory, in repayment for his suffering. The best man, the best team, isn’t automatically entitled to win. The winds of fate can turn you around, run you aground, sink you, and sometimes you can’t do a thing about it. However, just to make the commitment to something you believe in is winning — even if you lose the game. But for committing yourself to winning the game, whether you win or not, you always pay in tears and in blood.
I share Paterno’s perspective that Virgil’s view of Fate isn’t quite right. I think the future is open, even chaotic — undetermined and waiting to be experienced, even by the Deity. But I think that to be alive is to suffer, and the choice part of that is how I’ll respond to that suffering.
P.S. Lots of people, much smarter and better read than I, read this blog. I’m curious what philosopher you hear echoed in my post. I’ve done a lot of secondary source reading on various philosophers, and have combined several streams of thought. “There’s nothing new under the sun,” and so chances are, my view of the Universe (that I’ve stumbled into) is something someone already long dead has already written about — and someone else has critiqued. Those kinds of thoughts would be appreciated in the comments section as well. I learn from “commenters.”
Filed in The Belfry
Thanks for the post Jim. I’ve also noticed that the “rich” tend to drift away from religion or spirituality while the “poor” tend to cling to it despite their suffering. One would expect those that are worse off to believe less in a God because of their conceptions of love, justice, etc.
But I think that they cling because just as suffering is such an integral part of the universe, so it’s opposite, which I’ll say is “comfort” for argument sake. [I don't mean "comfort" in a cushy way, but in a relief from suffering way]. The poorest of the poor have nothing to cling to in this life. Their only chance at comfort/relief is justice in some kind of new world/afterlife/kingdom of God/other realm/whatever you want to call it.
The comfort-ed, or rich we’ll just call them, have solved, at least in part, half of the metaphsics of the universe, suffering. To use your terminology, they don’t need the most important service provided by religion.
Just as a footnote, I certainly don’t think we can chalk this phenomenon up to intelligence or education. There are scads of very-well educated religious folk and plenty of uneducated athiests. The opposite is also true.
Anyway, there’s just some of my thoughts. Thanks for yours. For full disclosure sake, I am a fairly orthodox [lower-case "o"] Christian and consider myself a classical liberal, a la Thomas Jefferson. As an added bonus I’m a college football fan, and so was excited to hear about Paterno’s book. So, in other words, this blog is right up my alley. Keep up the good work everbody.
P.S. Speaking of classics, Homer’s Odyssey is really about suffering, about a man who just wants to go home. The root of the name Odyssey/Odyseus means suffering or sorrow in the original Greek. So when the original Greek readers picked up the epic poem they saw the word “Suffering” on the cover. They weren’t thinking adventure travel like we think when we see the transliterated title today. I just found this out recently and it explained to me, at least, why the theme song for the Cohen brother’s modern day adaptation of the Odyssey, “O Brother, Where Art Thou” is called “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.”
Alex, Thank you for both of your comments. I learned some new things from your P.S.
As for “comfort,” please understand that this too is part of suffering. Please note again, my list, “prices, sacrifice, consequence, reward, incentive, pain, pleasure, delayed gratification, investment, having one’s cake or eating it, and, of course, death.” I could add to that list exercise, practice, education, and so much more. And to the extent that someone achieves comfort, either that individual, or someone who bequeathed to that individual sought to overcome suffering.
The word suffering is technically accurate (I’ve not discovered a better word), but misleading due to our common understanding of it. Don’t be misled. I am very pro-happiness.
* Theologically, I believe in Christian Hedonism.
* Legally, I believe that the right to “the pursuit of happiness,” is the most interesting and pleasing part of the Declaration of Independence. What a country! Here everyone can pursue their individual bliss! God bless America.
“To be alive is to suffer” Its crap. Man’s ego has created evil and in a civilization which engages ego evil will create suffering. Grief, affliction, pain and death is not necessarily suffering if it is acknowledge to be part of human existence and is the normal process of living. Suffering is incurred when the extraordinary is demanded by evil. This is when you know that the pain, affliction and grief are result of another desires. If your lot in life were to break rocks everyday so that you make a meager living, it isn’t suffering nor is the struggle to keep from starving, if resources are scarce. It is suffering if you break rocks every day and denied the ability earn that meager living. Dignity assuages suffering.
VRB, So what exactly are you saying? Suffering is a figment of the human imagination, or suffering isn’t real unless it happens by conscious action, or suffering comes because we have desires? Well, at least you didn’t suggest it was Original Sin.
You know, it’s funny. In my first theodicy post, I was taken to task for exactly the opposite reason — that I wasn’t taking into account all the other categories of suffering and pain. You seem to be suggesting there’s only one. Hmm.
Great post… and I sure hope Joe-Pa sticks around for another decade or two, I’m not a Nittany Lions fan, but the guy is a living legend, and it comes as no surprise that he might have some interesting bits of wisdom to share.
I’m afraid what you’re encountering with your commenters is sort of the overarching problem of metaphysical discourse: the poverty of language. Issues that deal with the purpose or properties of life itself are so complex for our minds that even if you are one of the lucky few that manages to order them in a coherent, to say nothing about correct, manner within your own mind, it is an almost equally improbable task to succinctly express them to another mind (and even more improbable to the masses, or at least a larger number of minds.) Of course this task is only made harder in the cold, impersonal world that is the blogosphere (even this warm friendly corner isn’t close to ideal.)
Having gotten that out of the way, I’d like to pick apart some of the language above:
First, when you mention mathematics and natural law. I think it makes perfect sense to include mathematics within relationships, as math is basically an attempt to express the relationships we perceive (or experience, depending on who you ask.)
Second, I’m not sure I understand the function of your claim, however well qualified, that humans “from everything we can tell have the deepest understanding of relationship.” I’ve often taken the complete opposite idea, that humans are the only ones so arrogant enough to have cast off this understanding in an attempt to shape it to fit something closer to what we perceive as the ideal. I’m also not sure I wouldn’t put the concept of love closer to the category of suffering than relationship, but maybe that’s just my bad luck.
Now to pick at the language of your commenters: Again to start, very interesting additions Alex. I had never heard of that Odyssey connection, but it does make sense. I think in general I get what you’re saying. However, I’m a little worried by your use of a few terms, most importantly “solved.” I would submit, as you suggest, that the less well off are more likely to be attracted by the comforts of religion (if I may steal and tweak your terminology a bit,) which are more easily accessible to those without a disposable income. Meanwhile, the more well off have a more diverse choice of avenues to seek this comfort in, so they take Yoga classes and read Deepak Chopra, or buy really fast cars and snort cocaine. I’m not sure either is quite a solution, as much as a method of coping with the vagaries of life. There really is little difference, it is all just an intrapersonal attempt to understand our relationship with suffering.
[Oh, and since we are disclosing things, I was raised by a nominally Jewish but non-practicing father, and a nominally Catholic but non-practicing mother... which I half credit for my wider respect for faith than most of my peers. Nonetheless, I do have a healthy distrust of broad-based organizations religious or otherwise, and don't ascribe to any particular faith. I do, however, look forward to August 30th, and plan to keep the college football sabbath holy. Sic 'em Dawgs!!!]
Jim Babka,
I am not saying suffering is a figment of man’s imagination. I am saying that suffering has an emotional component. This emotion is set, when another’s desire causes the failure or some evil event.
Have you ever noticed in pictures of starving people from famine, there is almost a stoic expression on their faces? To me it is quite different than when you see people who have been burned out of their villages. There are the emotions of anger and despair. This has been a disruption of life. Perhaps this is how I describe suffering, as a disruption of life. The struggle to live or succeed, illnesses, pain and death are the processes of life, not suffering.
Thanks for the blog. You waxed eloquent and put words into an idea I’ve held for a long time: that we all have our own ‘if only’. My (fill in the blank: job, marriage, health) would be great IF ONLY. And I’m not sure that I would trade my ‘if only’, or suffering, for someone else’s. As you stated, we have that inner voice reminding us where we need to get to - the suffering is just our challenge.
VRB, Thanks for the clarification.
Greyson, Wow, I’m pleased you found the post interesting. I also like how you described the difficulty of discussing metaphysical language.
CLT, It is true, isn’t it… that we wouldn’t trade our “if onlys” for someone else’s? I wasn’t even thinking of that. You’ve added to my thinking.
[...] Greyson had something to say about this in response to my last post, and it was so well-put, that I wanted t… I’m afraid what you’re encountering with your commenters is sort of the overarching problem of [...]
Interesting! Am I wrong for thinking that “suffering” as you define it could also be called “cause and effect” or “consequence”? You’re describing what it means to live in time as opposed to out of it, right? Stuff happens (you work, you’re born), then as a result other stuff happens later on (you get paid, you die). Some of those sequences are things you can control, like work/get paid, and some are decidedly not, like born/die.
Greyson half-jokingly suggested that relationship is just a special case of suffering, but I think he’s got a point. Can you think of anything people work, fight, and bargain for more than love? We use words of competition for love all the time: win, lose, conquest. I’m not just talking about romantic love, either. How many people move mountains trying to impress their parents and earn their love? Love certainly causes (and relieves, of course) suffering in the ordinary sense.
Let’s set aside human love for a moment, though. You talked about the relationship among things, too. The earth draws the moon into its orbit, and as a result the moon turns the tides. Is that relationship or suffering? Or would you say they’re inseparable to the extent that that’s a pointless question? I guess I’m asking whether relationship and suffering are yin and yang, opposing forces in dynamic balance, or two ways of looking at a single force. It’d be easier for me to understand if I could come up with synonyms. Relationship/Suffering = Unity/Individuality, Stability/Change, Order/Chaos, Space/Time. Are any of those at all close?
You asked what your philosophy reminds us of. The way you link together the emotional relationships among people and the physical relationships among objects into a single category reminds me of Medieval natural philosophy. Before Newton described and named gravity, the word “love” had a much broader definition than it does now, and it was used to describe the attractive force among objects in the universe. When Dante closes Paradiso by describing “the Love that moves the sun and the other stars” he isn’t speaking metaphorically. He believed that love was a physical force holding the universe together, as did all educated men of his day. Also, your emphasis on the cycles of life and the continuous alternation of pleasure and pain in human existence as “suffering” reminds me of Buddhism.
tilts_at_windmills, You took this in a completely different, and interesting direction. I hadn’t thought about love and suffering as being Yin/Yang, et al.
I did speak of relationship between things. And I am, I sheepishly admit, attracted to the romance of the Medieval natural philosophy. It all seems so simple. And like Ockham said, “Simple is good.” OK, maybe he didn’t put it that way. But I am attracted to parts of Thomist philosophy (particularly the Two Books concept), though, obviously, not all of it. The rediscovery of Aristotle helped elevate man out of 1,000 years mired in Platonic muck.
There is something special and important about Love, as illustrated by the examples you mentioned. And happens to be an important Biblical theme as well. Scripture specifically claims, “God=Love.” And in all seriousness, we don’t know the “Why?” to gravity. We just know it’s there, how to predict it’s operation, and how it acts on various entities. Is there, like The Onion joked, Intelligent Falling? Leibniz sure seemed to think so — but then again, maybe he just didn’t want to give Newton any more credit. Ha!
So…
tilts_at_windmills asked,
Relationship.
But until Greyson mentioned it, I hadn’t thought of the idea of Love transcending or being a part of both categories. And so with Love, perhaps we have the Unified Field?
I’m going to think some more about that.
But I especially thank you, tilts_at_windmills, for suggesting the echoes you heard in other philosophies. There’s definitely some Buddhism in the mix of my thinking, but I differ in eschatology with Buddhism — preferring Christian heaven and resurrection over re-incarnation and nirvana (literally, nothingness). But I’ve never read any of Dante.
Eh, no need to be sheepish about the appeal of Medieval natural philosophy. I was almost a Medieval/Renaissance literature professor for a reason, and it wasn’t the money. I wouldn’t call Medieval natural philosophy “simple”–when it’s wrong, it’s often desperately convoluted compared to the right answer (think “retrograde motion”)–but to the extent that the Two Books theory is an attempt to interpret the world itself as one would a work of art it’s very attractive, at least to people like me. You’ve probably got a much stronger grasp of it than I do, since I only know what I picked up as background to studying the era’s poetry.
If you’ve got any inclination to read it, I think you’d get a lot out of The Divine Comedy. It plays out the idea of a universe built on Love quite beautifully, and makes a fine case for eros as a path to agape. The more you talk about how you see the world, the more you sound like Dante.