I do not believe that anyone agrees that suffering is the best thing to happen to anybody. I believe that suffering is a part of life though. You cannot appreciate things if you do not go through the good and bad of life. Suffering teaches people not to take things for granted and appreciate the things that you are blessed with. My family took a lost last year that was very hard for the family. My family took my Uncle Brian for granted. We never had time for him, or time to support any of his goals. He was suffering with cancer and did not let anyone know of his condition. Because, he did not want anyone to treat him differently, by time he was on his death bed all of us felt bad and full of regret. We lost him in October of 2013. His death made us appreciate our family members that are here even more. Even though the suffering feels hard at the time it makes you appreciate things. Whether it is family, time, or something that is dear to you. Most people would probably love a life with high highs instead of highs and lows. But, most people do not realize that suffering made them who they are. You have to take the good with the bad. That is just a part of life. I do not understand, why others would want high highs. I am not saying that I love suffering, but because of the suffering I have experienced I do not take my life, family, or everyday for granted. Would you want a life without suffering? Do you think you would appreciate things the same without the good or the bad? Most people believe that everything happens for a reason. They would not want to change not one aspect of their lives and I agree with that. I guess if you agree'd with Lucretius, you would want to eliminate pain all together and not experience any type of suffering.
I agree with what you are saying. Suffering helps you appreciate the little things in life and not take things for granted. It also helps people realize things that wouldn't have been realized without having the suffering.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with Epictetus in the sense that our irrational attachments to objects, people, and experiences can lead us to be unhappy. We like to think that suffering helps us appreciate the good things in life, but we also have to ask ourselves: Is this good in itself or is it good in comparison of something bad? If one answers with the latter, then can we really say that something is inherently good, or is it just less bad? A life without some form of suffering is difficult to imagine and nearly impossible to achieve, so I think we try to validate our suffering to make some meaning out of it. My deepest condolences about your uncle, I know how difficult it can be to loose someone whose life you feel was taken for granted.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statement that suffering is somewhat nessasary to our lives. We do, unfornutalty, take people and things for granted. We kind of want to suffer, even if it is just a little bit, in order to appreciate the good thing and times even more. We rely on the goods and bads to keep things interesting even if we have to suffer along the way.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think you cannot have the good without the bad. How do you know what is good if nothing is bad? In a would without pain could we grow, thrive, or learn? What would be the point of working or school if nothing bad could happen to us? What would the consensuses of our actions be? If we didn't like someone could we just kill them, would we be capable of death; would we be capable of hate? This world that I imagine slowly becomes more and more like a lazy nightmare with no sense of progression.
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