Life is Not Suffering

I spent my childhood learning about God.

What he wanted from us humans, and how we could give it to him.

What we were saddled with from birth: sin.

Like with other religious sects, I grew up believing in my inherent imperfection. I grew up with the belief that life was suffering, and we had to make meaning from it.

We would fail, constantly, and never live up to the standards God set for us, so we had to hope for the future. Through God's power alone could the world be set aright. Only through God's grace could we ever be forgiven.

Jesus is the epitome of this viewpoint: His one time death was the only thing needed to release all men from sin and death. (Now, being Protestant, my birth religion did also focus on "works" not just "faith", but that's a separate concern.)

Jesus needed to suffer for the world to be saved. And we, his spiritual descendants, had to suffer for the world to be saved. 

My belief growing up, then, was that suffering was a birthright and so we had to make it mean something. 

On the other hand, one could look at the hedonists. Their beliefs about suffering were the same, but shrouded by one more layer.

Instead of believing that suffering is unavoidable, they seek to ignore suffering by insisting on only short-term pleasures. They never trade out current pains or effort for longer-term gains and products. They are stuck in the here and now because suffering would continue, if they did not.

Life, however, is both more hopeful and more complex than that. Suffering occurs; to deny it would be willfully ignorant. But suffering does not itself mean anything. It's a facet of life, but it is as much a facet of life as joy, interest, curiosity, hope, inspiration, motivation, and love. 

Suffering is a temporary state, to be endured and then cast aside, in pursuit of better, longer-ranging goals: self-satisfaction, value-attainment, growth, production, love, et cetera.

Suffering is also something to be traded on. Since it is meaningless, one can accept momentary suffering for the pursuit of a higher value. One can endure the pain in one's legs if winning the race is the goal. One can endure the pain of lost loved one if loving life as a principle is the goal. 

I am still learning about suffering. I am still learning that suffering is not what my life or any life needs to constitute. It happens- pain, fear and anguish- but it's not all there is to life.

Suffering is not the story of life; suffering composes the spaces. And if you fill your life with happiness, the spaces will be there, but they will be surrounded with the more meaningful.