The Art of Suffering
It should be indisputable that the world is full of sufferings. Any daily newspapers can testify this fact and arouse this melancholic sentiment with ample examples of life misery. Even as an individual, a person may have scores of reasons to be unhappy on any single day.
For the sake of living, however, it is worth questioning to what extent suffering can be avoided in ones life. As far as physical pain is concerned, the answer may be rather obvious: to the extent that any bodily damage can be avoided, or sickness prevented; but failing which, to the extent that any associated pain, or more precisely, the biological sense of it can be subdued by medication or any other means. On the other hand, afflictions in the mind - anxiety, frustration, fear, anger, jealousy and all the rest of mental sufferings - may be less readily arrested, depending upon, amongst many other things, the character of the individual concerned.
But if suffering is virtually a fact, which will catch up with a person sooner or later in his life, are there any merits to it and, more importantly, is there any way we can choose to suffer so as to benefit from these merits - if not possibly to enjoy suffering itself? Marcel Proust believes so; and Alain De Botton wittily elucidates on Proust's thinking in his enlightening "How Proust Can Change Your Life?"
"In Proust's view, we don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped. Infirmity alone makes us take notice and learn, and enables us to analyse processes which we would otherwise know nothing about..."
Indeed anyone who lives a corporate life for long enough should recall ample incidents on how, at times, "shock" - be it in the form of a verbal reprimand, a warning letter, or even a threat of dismissal - is required for someone out of line in thinking, or attitude, or both, to fall back in line with the boss' expectation, ie, if it is not too late to do so.
So it is only through suffering that we can be truly enlightened - as Proust tells us: happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops the strengths of the mind.
As such, there is much wisdom to be gained from suffering, and instead of "how to avoid suffering?", the right question to ask should become "how to suffer successfully?". Alain De Botton ingeniously does so, and what he suggests is enlightening: "Though philosophers have traditionally been concerned with the pursuit of happiness, far greater wisdom would seem to lie in pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy. The stubborn recurrence of misery means that the development of a workable approach to it must surely outstrip the value of any Utopian quest for happiness." So true, it is like learning to sleep with the enemy if one has to, rather than being miserably obsessed with dreaming about the perfect partner.
But one needs to know how to do it. The Proustian way is to put pain into perspectives by gaining a better understanding of reality, ie, by understanding the reasons behind the pain.
Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.
It means rather than feigning indifference behind the facade of dignity, as in stoicism, the Proust way to suffering is to embrace it, but allow the pain to go down only so deep before we make sense of it and learn, or benefit, from it.
For the sake of living, however, it is worth questioning to what extent suffering can be avoided in ones life. As far as physical pain is concerned, the answer may be rather obvious: to the extent that any bodily damage can be avoided, or sickness prevented; but failing which, to the extent that any associated pain, or more precisely, the biological sense of it can be subdued by medication or any other means. On the other hand, afflictions in the mind - anxiety, frustration, fear, anger, jealousy and all the rest of mental sufferings - may be less readily arrested, depending upon, amongst many other things, the character of the individual concerned.
But if suffering is virtually a fact, which will catch up with a person sooner or later in his life, are there any merits to it and, more importantly, is there any way we can choose to suffer so as to benefit from these merits - if not possibly to enjoy suffering itself? Marcel Proust believes so; and Alain De Botton wittily elucidates on Proust's thinking in his enlightening "How Proust Can Change Your Life?"
"In Proust's view, we don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped. Infirmity alone makes us take notice and learn, and enables us to analyse processes which we would otherwise know nothing about..."
Indeed anyone who lives a corporate life for long enough should recall ample incidents on how, at times, "shock" - be it in the form of a verbal reprimand, a warning letter, or even a threat of dismissal - is required for someone out of line in thinking, or attitude, or both, to fall back in line with the boss' expectation, ie, if it is not too late to do so.
So it is only through suffering that we can be truly enlightened - as Proust tells us: happiness is good for the body, but it is grief which develops the strengths of the mind.
As such, there is much wisdom to be gained from suffering, and instead of "how to avoid suffering?", the right question to ask should become "how to suffer successfully?". Alain De Botton ingeniously does so, and what he suggests is enlightening: "Though philosophers have traditionally been concerned with the pursuit of happiness, far greater wisdom would seem to lie in pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy. The stubborn recurrence of misery means that the development of a workable approach to it must surely outstrip the value of any Utopian quest for happiness." So true, it is like learning to sleep with the enemy if one has to, rather than being miserably obsessed with dreaming about the perfect partner.
But one needs to know how to do it. The Proustian way is to put pain into perspectives by gaining a better understanding of reality, ie, by understanding the reasons behind the pain.
Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.
It means rather than feigning indifference behind the facade of dignity, as in stoicism, the Proust way to suffering is to embrace it, but allow the pain to go down only so deep before we make sense of it and learn, or benefit, from it.
Comments