Suffering

My uncle said it was after his first divorce that he turned to philosophy. After being single for a while, I can see where he’s coming from. Though it’s rather vain to say that falling out of love has kindled my interest in philosophy, it does put in perspective where its place is in our lives.

It was the great Socrates who said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Couldn’t be truer. But, there is a time when philosophy enters our lives at an opportune moment – when we are not merely interested, but compelled to examine our thinking and way of doing things. For me, as well as my uncle, it was the moment when I suffered.

I won’t be one to bemoan my station, as everyone has had his or her share of difficulty this year. But I had expectations. At 25, I was gonna be somebody. I was going to have the girlfriend, the job, the career. And it didn’t happen. I thought I was going to marry my last girlfriend and have babies and the whole nine yards. And it was a great feeling. I was comfortable, satisfied – until things started to sour. I found myself envying other relationships, and was strongly dissatisfied the one I currently had. I reexamined my life and found that I was not in the right frame of mind for my current relationship, and decided I needed change. So, knowing that I was going to be lonely for a while, I broke it off.

Now, though this isn’t the best example of applying philosophical thought to my everyday life, it was the start. The months following were difficult. I had no confidence with women, and no job. And I suffered, and suffered some more. I began to cultivate interests in things I didn’t care about when I was comfortable. I turned to music, learned to cook a great steak, and further along, gained some confidence to talk to women (still working on that one). I had to ask myself what made me happy, and why I was doing the things I did. And though there ended up being more questions than there were answers, at least I was asking the questions.

It could be argued that philosophy’s primary goal is to justify suffering. Our great staples of thought – from religion to law – have been established to give some meaning to the imperfections in our world. We don’t want to die, but we have to. The same can be said of taxes, work, disease, cruelty done to us by others and so on. And while we can say that the burdens we take up are more easily weighed when we know there’s some meaning to their existence, we can say that their understanding allows for them to be overcome.

I think of all those days when I was comfortable, and the lack of thinking I did at the time. I wasn’t writing this blog, I wasn’t playing music, and certainly wasn’t asking myself why I was doing the things I did. And it was all because I didn’t suffer. What am I doing now? The same. Constant employment is still elusive, and women are plentiful, but still a mystery. And when I ask if there is meaning to any of my pursuits, if my suffering has meaning, I can only come to one conclusion: love.

My love for music, and its ability to bring people together. My love for film, and the way it can change peoples’ way of thinking. And my love for this fucking whacky existence we call life. For what is the point of examining anything if we don’t love it? I will never learn to love suffering. But at least I can love the ways by which I may alleviate it.