Suffering. If your
eyes are open, you see it. If you take your hands off your ears, you hear it.
If you put yourself in a bad position, you feel it. Suffering is all around is,
it is something that we can learn to ignore, or learn to fix. If you fail at
either of those, it will consume you. Suffering is a nasty little beast. We see
it on the television, we hear stories of it, and most claim that at some time
they were suffering in some way. They are probably right too. We all suffer.
People don’t live perfect lives. It’s nearly a law of nature. I’m not perfect,
and neither are you. Because of that, we both suffer.
But do we
deserve it? Is there such a thing as deserving to suffer? Growing up I asked
myself this question every so often, but I never had a definite answer. I was
certainly leaning towards the idea that some people did deserve to suffer, but
overall people should strive to minimize it. Even when I was young I was a
Utilitarian. I’ve always been distant from such situations though. I’ve watched
other people suffer, I’ve watched myself suffer. But it was just that, I
watched. I didn’t get involved. I didn’t care.
People come to
me for advice. They have a problem; they come to me to lay out the facts in
front of them. I propose the most logical solution as I see it, and they usually
follow it. It serves my ego to see people need me. That is my pleasure. I want
to be wanted, and I have found a way to make that happen. Connect the dots and
in a convoluted way, I thrive on the suffering of others. It’s not something
that I directly enjoy, just the outcomes of it. It makes me wanted.
But do people
deserve to suffer? I can go on and on about how it strengthens human resolve,
but that would be a waste of time. But even then, that’s a different form of
suffering than which I speak of. I’m talking about the type of suffering where
you watch all of your dreams, all of your prospects and desires slip between
your very fingers. The kind of suffering where you see your life falling apart
before your eyes and are completely powerless to stop is; where no matter how
hard you try you can never regain the position where you once were. The kind of
suffering that you yourself inadvertently caused. That is the worst kind of
suffering.
No matter how
fast you can run, you cannot escape your own thoughts. They will stay with you,
they will haunt you, and they will destroy you. It is easy to take solace in thinking
that you are a victim, but if you see your life fall apart by your own hand, is
not something that you can escape. It is something that will eat away at you no
matter how hard you try to suppress it.
If you want
someone to suffer, you need to let them do it to themselves. People can take
away houses, cars, food and so on, but nobody can take away someone’s mind.
That is the last refuge for the suffering. If you want someone to truly feel
pain, you need to take away that haven from them as well. With a bit of
foresight, you can nudge people in such a way that they will veer towards
self-destruction. Whether it’s the coworker that coasts through life or the
person who did you wrong a few years back, suffering is inevitable, and with
some luck and foresight you can ensure that they receive it.
Though I still
haven’t answered the question. The question of whether or not people deserve to
suffer. More recently I’ve though that the answer is yes. Bad people exist. But
what do I mean by bad? We exist in a community,
but on a fundamental level we all serve our self-interests. I define bad people
as those who go against our respective self-interests, whatever they may be.
Many of these self-interests likely coincide with societal norms, but that is
not something that is particularly relevant to defining a bad person. A bad
person is someone who is actively working against the convictions which you
have dedicated yourself to. So do these people deserve to suffer? Bad people
are simply those who have different motives, and means by which to achieve them.
Recently I came
to the conclusion that someone in my life deserves to suffer. Whether it is for
what they represent to me, what wrongs they have done to me, it is irrelevant.
I realized that it would bring me pleasure to see their misfortune and pain. I
wanted to see them suffer, and I wanted to cause that suffering. With a little nudging
and a bit of foresight, people can do nearly anything that you want them to.
The trick is getting them to believe that they’re doing what they actually want
to do. I have sent this person on a path towards self-destruction. I nudged
them in just the right way, at precisely the right time.
Yet I have a
feeling of guilt. It is unusual though, it is not a typical version of that
feeling. I have no remorse for my actions, none whatsoever. I instead feel
guilty for wanting someone to suffer, for realizing that it would bring me joy
to participate in the suffering of another. In a form of retaliation, I experienced
happiness. That is my guilt. That is what will haunt me; not what I did, but
what I wanted.
