The Lower Limit to Suffering

Most things are relative, and that includes suffering. Objectively, some people simply have far rougher existences than others and seem to undergo more than their fair share of hardship. When I am caught up in my own comparatively trivial woes, I often think to myself, “I shouldn’t make such a big deal, others have it far worse”. Many of us tell ourselves this, but it never makes us feel any better does it? That’s because, when seen through an objective lens, our sufferings have prominent disparities — however, seen subjectively, those disparities become somewhat leveled. I’m not claiming that even subjectively, our sufferings are entirely equal — life is too unjust for even our imaginations to distort it into a picture of fairness. However, our hardships certainly do distort to a degree, proportional to our circumstances in life, so as to always appear significant in our eyes. 

For example, we can look back to our childhood trials and laugh at how small they were and yet how awfully large and important and real they felt. I was recently working with a group of six year olds at a summer camp, and heartfelt tears were shed over picking out the wrong flavor dum-dum. It was humorous (to the beholder, not the one being beheld), and I thought, “what a life — to have one’s greatest woes rooted in a lollipop.” But, a six-year old’s whole world is smaller than an adult’s, so the suffering caused by that lollipop creates just as big of an aching hole in their life as does the new sufferings that emerge in the life of a sixteen-year old or a sixty-year old.

The sufferings of us and our peers may not be equal or stem from the same problems, but there is always a lower limit to the discomfort and struggle we experience, irrespective of the nature or objective unpleasantness of our hardships. This means that the obstacle we’re currently facing may look like a Mt. Everest to us, but only a molehill in the eyes of our neighbor. This matter of perspectives makes sense though, considering that we all have different values, strengths, and live in vastly different circumstances. 

For example, Person A may experience debilitating anxiety for an entire two weeks leading up to an exam, while Person B’s thoughts and cares are directed entirely elsewhere for the same fortnight. On the other hand, Person A hasn’t had any worries about the basketball tryouts next Thursday, even though it’s been the principal culprit of Person B’s anguish. There could be a couple reasons for this. Perhaps Person A feels shaky about their comprehension for the exam, but knows they’re great at basketball, while the opposite is true for Person B. On the other hand, Person A could be very prepared for the exam, only its outcome is so extremely important to them that they still suffer greatly on account of it; they don’t really care for basketball though, so the tryouts aren’t fretting them, even though they are actually rubbish at it. Person B, however, could care less about the exam, hence their lack of worry on that account, and be excellent at basketball; but for them, making the team plays a significant role in defining their self-worth, hence their suffering on account of the tryouts. Both Person A and Person B would look at what is causing each other's distress and say, “if only that were my only problem, life would be so carefree!” For, it is sometimes the case, that when we look at other’s sufferings, all we see is the absence of our own, and this is a great destroyer of empathy. But, both of their sufferings is felt equally, due to their different strengths and values, and each of their sufferings is equally valid.

While their different perspectives caused Person A and Person B to suffer similarly in response to different challenges, one could argue that both faced objectively similar levels of difficulty. However, our individual trials are often maximized in our own eyes, so as to make us all derive a certain amount of misery from unequal hardships. In addition to values and strengths, the circumstances in which we live help to explain why greatly differing levels of suffering are not felt on such different levels as they outwardly appear. Each of our environments also sets us a different standard of what is necessary, what is worth struggling and suffering for. For someone who lives in an environment where their life is regularly on the line, the trials of an average middle-class member of society — having to drive an ugly old car, occupying a lowly position in the work-place, taxes, boredom with the routine of life, etc —  probably seem more like inconveniences than real sufferings, and may sometimes even appear as luxuries. Objectively, they wouldn’t be wrong: how can I complain that work is too time-consuming and tiring, while joblessness exists but I have the opportunity to receive an education and earn money? Who am I to gripe about my country’s politics, when I’m blessed to live in a country where I have a voice and my individuality is protected under law, while others live under the blight of war and are threatened merely by their birth?

I’m not anyone to complain about such things, and yet I do. And I suffer the sufferings of the privileged. For, the standards of my environment are different from those of the person whose existence is marked by a constant struggle for their life. Having one’s physical needs met and safety prioritized, so that one needn’t make surviving their number one priority is the norm in my environment. In order to be accepted, thrive, and achieve something higher than the bare minimum of our sheltered existence’s standards, we must check off a good deal of superfluous boxes in addition to the principle box of staying alive. So, because suffering has undergone inflation, we feel that we suffer on account of things far more trivial than the person who is fighting hard for their life and experiencing more than we’ll ever know, what it means to even be alive. 

But this is not meant to minimize anyone’s sufferings; for any suffering is still suffering. And suffering arises when we feel something deeply. Who can control what they feel or the acuteness of those feelings? The more we feel, the more vividly we live, and with the more life that we gain, we are better able to have compassion on all the other beings who suffer.

Image: “Anguish” by Friedrich Albrecht Schenck, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anguish_%28Schenck%29