The Utility of Suffering

At a young age, we are taught in various ways that pain and suffering “build character”. How they do exactly, we do not know, but we see examples every day. We hear of how sparing the rod spoils the child. We admire the athlete’s tenacity to endure pain and strive for an otherwise pointless achievement. We listen with a hint of envy to the trials and tribulations of past generation. Despite the inherent contradiction, pain and suffering are good. Even God says so:

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” – Romans 5:3

But, of course, I question this. And so do many others. I came across an interview with Woody Allen today: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,361905,00.html Allen said:

“There is nothing really redeeming about tragedy. Tragedy is tragic, and it's so painful that people try to twist it and say "it's terribly hard, but look we've achieved something, we've learned something." This is a weak attempt to find some kind of meaning in tragedy. But there is no meaning. There is no up-side. And suffering does not redeem anything; there is no positive message to learn from it. I have thought for a while that it would make a good story to look at two filmmakers, one who makes tragic films and one who makes comedies, to see who helps people more. The first argues that you come to his tragedy and he gives it to you so that you confront reality and you don't escape. And because you confront life, you learn to understand other people and you are more generous to them. The comic makes the movie and says "The world is terrible." So you walk into the cinema, sit there for two hours, hear a nice bit of music, have a laugh. It's like drinking a cold glass of water on a hot day. The argument can always be made that the comic filmmaker is doing the better service. In the end he is helping you more, you're okay for a little while longer.”

Allen clearly believes that there is nothing to be learned or gained from pain. He feels the best you can do is escape. Have a few laughs and enjoy life because that is all one can do in the ocean of suffering that is the world. In fact, I cannot think of piece of work Allen has done that does not intensely focus on this theme (except maybe Bananas and Casino Royale, but those don’t really count).

Now, if one takes Allen’s concept too far, though, one could just dope oneself up on alcohol or anti-depressants and deal with the world like that. And why not?

I also ran into an interview with Tom Cruise: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash3tc.htm

Rather than the world of pointless suffering that Allen speaks of, Cruise indirectly speaks of a world where there is no pointless suffering. The ultimate example of pointless suffering is a person that has some sort of mental disorder. On this, Cruise says:

“There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance”

“The antidepressant, all it does is mask the problem. There's ways of vitamins and through exercise and various things. I'm not saying that that isn't real. That's not what I'm saying. That's an alteration of what-- what I'm saying. I'm saying that drugs aren't the answer, these drugs are very dangerous. They're mind-altering, anti-psychotic drugs.”

“Where's the medical test? Where's the blood test that says how much Ritalin you're supposed to get?”

Now, it is hard to believe that there are not truly crazy people out there with chemical imbalances. I run into several on my walk to work. No amount of light, exercise or vitamins is going to save them from being nuts and miserable. Still, Cruise is on to something. If misery is a symptom there is a problem. If we solve the problem, then progress has been made. This would imply that pain does have a function- it alerts us of a problem. From a biological perspective, that is exactly what “pain” is defined as- a detection of injury.

So, pain can have use and some pain probably does build character. Then again, I’ve met a lot of psychotic athletes who are boring as hell and have not gained anything other than dulling themselves to the world and giving themselves something to occupy their time with. I have also met plenty of old people that complain and complain about the pain they endure every day. And what about the truly crazy and miserable? This pain does seem pointless.

Every once in a while, I meet people that think middle school was fun. How on earth they can think the most painful part of a human being’s existence is fun is beyond me, but it happens. Not surprisingly, I find I cannot relate to these individuals and I usually cease speaking to them rather quickly.

Perhaps that is the purpose of seemingly pointless pain- empathy. Without shared experiences, we are alone. Pain is one of them, and a damn important one. Pain is gravity that brings people together. It tempers their actions and enhances their understanding of the world. A human without pain would fit in with his peers about as well as toothless lion with his pride. One needs it to function and to be normal.

(Of course, there a point where one experiences too much and one becomes depressing and weird and no one wants to talk to the person. That pain, I concede, is pointless.)