You Haven't Suffered Enough!

Young people of the West, Heed my Warning; Misery is Boring.

Flowers are beautiful. The sea is delicate and awe-inspiring. The grass is doing what it does. Birds fly about. Fresh sheets, good coffee, and thick socks are more important than most things.

~

Anyone who has followed my work for some time will know that I tend to consistently support the miserable[1], tragic, pessimistic, and cynical view of things. For so long I have found repeated reasons and excuses to drop the names of Cioran, Land, Schopenhauer, Spengler, Ligotti, etc. A list that seems to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and…on. Why is that? It’s because birds of a feather flock together, it’s because misery sells, it’s because misery loves company. And it never ends, too. As one enters the labyrinth of misery, one succumbs to the gravitational pull of misery par excellence, a force that seeks solely to make one ever more miserable for the fact misery exists at all. The misery-maxxing attitude, whereby one seeks only to find a thinker or writer even bleaker than the one they’re currently reading. ‘Oh, you think that’s bad!’

Let me write plainly. In our modern world, which has conflated pleasure and hedonism with happiness, it has become a false fact of common intelligence that misery is synonymous with wisdom. That somehow being sordid, caustic, melancholic, pessimistic, bleak, or just plain old miserable somehow makes one more authentic, honest, or smart. The reality is of course that what is, is. And so being miserable, in truth, only means one is miserable. Nothing more, nothing less. And the fact of the matter is, if you ask someone what they want from life and they answer anything other than ‘happiness’ (which is being itself, really), they’re just coping.

How did I get here though? How, after all these years of Cioran-touting, cynicism bleeding, and pessimism-simping did I wind up looking at a flower and thinking ‘Woah, that’s astoundingly beautiful.’ The answer is simple, and as with most simple things, is Truth, and thus eternal. The truth is that suffering is a choice.

What is worse the Doctor’s appointment itself or the incessant Googling of symptoms? The dental checkup or the waiting room? The worry or the reality? The anxiety or the catastrophe? Think of the most entertained you’ve been by a TV series, video game, or book…doesn’t this pale in comparison to the length of entertainment one gets from a good worry, a good bout of misery?

It is such then, that we create our own - therein, false - misery by way of applying suffering atop nearly all events. If there is that which will be and such will be always as it will be, then we are always worrying and fretting over what will be, even before what will be has been. Or, reality is, and then you go in and make it all emotional for your own masturbatory pleasure. Sound complicated? It isn’t.

If one’s car gets scratched by a careless person in the parking lot, then it is that we can say, for a fact, that one’s car has been scratched. Such an event has happened. Nothing to be done. The scratch is reality. One can either:

Accept reality, create a plan of how to resolve their ‘problem’, and action it. Or,

Bemoan reality and complain about the scratch, frustratingly create a plan whilst having a tantrum about how (in the as-of-yet-known future) the plan may not work, get annoyed at the person who did it, and then drag all that anger home to spew over and into loved ones.

But reality is reality. The scratch has happened. The suffering as applied after the fact, after reality, is suffering itself. Such suffering is a choice. The person who bemoans the fact of reality is in truth choosing to be miserable.

This is very personal for the fact that being miserable has, regrettably, been an intellectual cornerstone of my ‘self’ for so long that to detach from it appears impossible. Yet, such impossibility is in truth vulnerability. You see, unhappiness and happiness are not respectively situated at either end of a single spectrum. If you were to ask yourself at your most unhappy whether or not you were indeed ‘unhappy’ right now, you would answer with an emphatic ‘Yes!’ However, if one thinks of the happiest moments of their life, and thinks about what they would answer if someone was to tap them on the shoulder at that moment and ask ‘Are you happy right now?’ Surely one would only look at the questioner rather bemusingly because happiness just is, it is detached, it is possibly being itself. Whereas unhappiness always needs its vessel.

This is pretty much the basics of suffering, that is, simply, choosing to suffer. Suffering is just entertainment, nothing comes of it. Misery is masturbation. When one is in some deep pit of overthinking and miserable back-and-forth of how ever-so-bad everything is, it is usually because they are bored and can’t stand to be alone with themselves. Primarily because they are not being true to themselves and it’s easier to blame the world than confront their cope.

It is a question of reality. Reality is. The car has been scratched. The stomach is aching. The tickets have sold out. The past is over. The future is not. And so, everywhere you are unhappy is not reality. Emotions are always elsewhere, they are never now.

So why, if it’s as easy as I say it is, can’t we just give up our suffering? Because, as per the title, you haven’t suffered enough!

Now the question ‘Have I suffered enough?’ or ‘Have you suffered enough yet?’ means, Are you ready to give up your suffering? But if you haven’t suffered enough yet, if you haven’t had sufficient heartbreaks from your lover leaving you, from the person that you love most dying, if you haven’t had enough suffering from that…then I’m afraid you’re going to have to have some more. That’s life. - (Barry Long)

If this sounds harsh, that’s your suffering talking. If it sounds really harsh and you’re angry right now, sorry, but you’re going to have to suffer some more. Because that’s how it happened to me.

I was chatting away with a friend, moaning, bemoaning, complaining, whining, and being miserable as per the etiquette of everyone normal today. Lucky for me this friend wasn’t normal, and talked to me about suffering, and told me I hadn’t suffered enough…of course, my suffering caught wind of this abject attack on its character and proceeded to be even more miserable in response.

But I caught it out. I saw in the moment that I was being told I hadn’t suffered enough that my first response to this statement was to…cling to suffering!

So let me ask you - Have you suffered enough? Or, put another way, When will your suffering be enough?

Suffering is easy. Being miserable is easy. Whining is easy. Being sullen is comfortable. Despair is boring. Moaning is easy. Being unhappy is the most popular pleasure of all the West. Our cynical reason has usurped all reality, and we tell ourselves that being miserable is right and true and funny and fine because we’ve conflated it with intelligence or some such. When in fact…it goes nowhere, it only goes deeper into itself until one can’t even really see a flower anymore.

So why don’t we give up our suffering? It’s simple - We don’t want to. You don’t want to. You want to suffer because suffering is comfortable. Suffering is a banal comfort. Suffering is a boring song. Suffering is a witty quip at two birds in love.

Yet, also, we don’t give up our suffering because on the other side of suffering are all these things that are uncomfortable and true. Love, affection, care, being true, life, flowers, good food, the sea, delicateness, and ice cream.

I can hear you scoffing at them. They are easy to scoff at because they’re simple like the truth usually is. Scoff all you like, see where it gets you.

Heed my warning young people:

No amount of misery will answer misery.

No quantity of misery shall suffice.

Misery has only non-questions and no ability to answer.

Misery has no truth.

Misery is masturbation.

Misery is entertainment.

Seriously, give it up. Life is joyous. And, if you are acute enough to catch it in the act, you’ll quickly notice how any ‘Ifs’ and ‘Buts’ in question to life being joyous are just suffering trying to justify its existence.

~

[1] I am using the words ‘miserable’ and ‘misery’ here as synonymous with all unhappiness. Unhappiness - Worry, anxiety, anger, hatred, misery, pessimism, melancholy, dreariness, sluggishness, cynicism, arrogance, jealousy, spite, hate, etc (You get the picture)