Understanding Suffering
The suffering of man is a very complicated matter that is most likely impossible to understand completely. It is a subject that people have grappled with since the dawn of recorded history. In fact, suffering is evident in every form of art man has created. Suffering is in our paintings, our poetry, our music, our plays, and in anything else that is conceivable. But still, we as a whole still struggle with the idea of suffering. It is my opinion that some individuals may grasp the notion of suffering more than others, but that no one person will ever fully understand suffering in every form. A person may only understand his or her own personal suffering, not suffering as a whole. It is the next step to then say that "understanding comes through suffering," which I also believe to be true. It is impossible to fully know what the suffering of a person is like, unless you have experienced the same thing in his own shoes.
Death is the reward of Life Life is considered, by some, to be a journey towards death and the great reward of afterlife. This traveling process is held in many different views and is expressed in numerous manners in literature.
In these works it is very easy to see that they experience great misery, but it is impossible to understand their suffering. Their suffering can only be identified, and compared to an individual's own suffering. One must experience suffering in order to fully understand what it was like. It is entirely a personal experience. It is for this reason that understanding comes through suffering.
Suffering is one of the things that make us human, it is what lets us enjoy the good times and thank God for them. Because it is though suffering and trials of life that ...
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... try to do the right thing. Where Antigone gets in trouble is when she questions God, because she expected God to role out the red carpet for her because she did what was right in God's eyes. The thing we for get is that God isn't about to be judged by men it is always the other way around. The dog doesn't judge its master we don't judge ours. God is a being above everything he created us and allowed us to see evil and experience suffering as a gift. So we could better understand love and happiness. We are not able to question God on this one because he is omnipotent; he knows what is best for us. This is where faith becomes so important we must trust God for everything. Antigone had faith in the gods and trusted them to take care of her situation. We will suffer if we walk the path the Christ takes us down but we will also experience, the greatest joy known to man.
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which James Baldwin, the author, presents an existential world where suffering characterizes a man’s basic state. The theme of tragedy and suffering can be transformed into a communal art form such as blues music. Blues music serves as a catalyst for change because the narrator starts to understand that not only the music but also himself and his relationship with Sonny. The narrator’s view of his brother begins to change; he understands that Sonny uses music as an exit of his suffering and pain. This story illustrates a wide critical examination. Richard N. Albert is one critic that explores and analyzes the world of “Sonny’s Blues”. His analysis, “The Jazz-Blues Motif in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”” is an example of how one can discover plot, characterization and jazz motif that builds this theme of suffering.
of suffering is most beneficial. However, answering this question about suffering becomes increasingly more difficult with the
And indeed, suffering, lack of safety, is unavoidable, and also necessary for some things. "When I was downstairs before, on my way here, listening to that woman sing, it struck me all of a sudden how much suffering she must have had to go through. It's repulsive to think you have to suffer that much" (65). But we do. Everyone does. In fact, "There's no way not to suffer" (65). We are never safe from it.
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
In Iyer’s article he comments on how suffering is handled in different situations and he goes into different explanations on how suffering could be interpreted. One example he gave was using a Buddhist interpretation, “Wise men in every tradition tell us that suffering brings clarity, illumination; for the Buddha, suffering is the first rule of life, and insofar as some of it
“One learns of the pain of others by suffering one’s own pain, he would say, by turning inside oneself, by finding one’s...
to state suffering as the entirety of the first noble truth, is not enough because the expression of
suffering hurts man spirit is does more good then constant happiness and power. We have to beat
Despite its prevalence, suffering is always seen an intrusion, a personal attack on its victims. However, without its presence, there would never be anyway to differentiate between happiness and sadness, nor good and evil. It is encoded into the daily lives people lead, and cannot be avoided, much like the prophecies described in Antigone. Upon finding out that he’d murdered his father and married his mother,
The gods' laws come before mortal laws in Antigone's point-of-view, which is how I believe also. In death, you will answer to your god and no man will have control of your fate in the world that lies hereafter. Therefore by obeying the gods, hopefully, will result in a happy afterlife, which are what most people strive for in ancient times and now. If man does not honor you for noble efforts, your gods' will. Antigone's act was honorable. She stood up to the highest of powers so she could honor her brother, knowing the consequence would be death. Most likely she figured there is only a certain amount man can do to you, so she might as well stand up for not only her family and beliefs, but her gods as well (lines 377-389).
Suffering is an individual's basic affective experience of pain or distress, often as a result of one’s physical, emotional or spiritual circumstance (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2006). Suffering can be classified as physical; for example pain caused by a dislocated knee, emotional; for example one’s grief over the death of a loved one, or spiritual; which is described as the state of being separated from the blissful nature of your divine self (soul). To suffer physically or emotionally is often unavoidable; however it can be argued that spiritual liberation...
Suffering is a big part what Louie Zamperini went through in the POW camps. In the book Unbroken there is a great deal of suffering that happens in the book, especially with Louie. In this scene Laura Hillenbrand describes Louie’s situation as, “Five more minutes passed, then ten. Louie’s arms went numb”(Hillenbrand 213). This example shows a small part of the suffering that Louie went through. This is where Louie encounters suffering is when Louie gets
According to Brooks (2014), people seek happiness but indirectly obtain several tests that affects their emotions in many ways. Indeed, when people are is questioned about their past, memories coming back to her mind are often the most important positively as negatively. A positive event can be the birth of a child, success. In contrast, a negative event is often links to death, failure, a dismissal, and so on. Suffering or pain also gives us an outside perspective. Without a doubt, suffering makes us human we like it or not. For example, when a friend tells that she has failed an exam and we realize that we could get it easily, it is hard to understand exactly her emotion because we have never been in the situation. But when the same situation arises and you become the concerned, you understand the effect that this failure may have on you emotionally. In this sense, we understand that suffering makes people human because it helps them to be connected to a situation already happened before or which could happen in the future.
The paradoxical connection between suffering and happiness is one that leaves room for various interpretations of the relationship. To suffer is to experience a feeling contrary to happiness, but one must suffer in order to know what happiness truly is. Suffering allows people to develop certain qualities that will ultimately make them happier. People who have suffered have been subjected to circumstances that are otherwise unfathomable, such as: witnessing the stark contrast between pleasure and pain, and facing circumstances that they cannot simply escape from, both of which allow them to develop qualities that make them happier in the long run.
God to help us get through these terrible times. We all have to try to