Suffering

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.