Human Suffering

When you hear the word human suffering what is the picture you visualize in your mind?

I see children. Children without food, without a home, children who lost their parents, and children who have nothing to eat. I see people all over the world who lost everything and hanging onto their life with a thread of hope for some better future. I see people fleeing countries where there is war. I see refugees in the camp. I see people in pain, unimaginable pain.

Noelia Bueno-Gómez (2017) in her paper “Conceptualizing suffering and pain” discusses definitions of the phenomena. Noelia discusses pain from two perspectives the body and the mind. Furthermore, she asserts that pain has multiple dimensions including bodily, psychological, and sociocultural. Noelia argues that when we look at people and their pain there is a psychophysical view is needed to understand what the concept entails.

“A definition of pain cannot be based only on the neurological understanding of it but has to incorporate other relevant factors such as cognitive awareness, interpretation, behavioral dispositions, as well as cultural and educational factors beyond the medical sphere.” Noelia Bueno-Gómez (2017)

Steven Gambardella writes about philosophy. He describes pain a follows:

“Nobody can understand the pain of another in the way the other knows that pain. “

How do you feel about pain?

We might not be exactly able to feel another person’s pain. As a mother, I can recall multiple occasions when my children were in physical and emotional pain, and I felt their pain. Maybe not exactly the way they felt it. I recall a time when my son was getting ready for surgery, and we were in the emergency room. I was sitting next to him, holding his hand, and wished if I could take away his pain. It hurt more seeing my child suffer than if I would have the pain. This situation happened on multiple occasions in my life when it comes to close loved ones and their suffering. I do believe if there is someone close to you it is a bond between the two of you that creates the effect when you can feel their pain and suffering.

What are the things we can do if we see someone in pain?

Being there is very important. Even if you physically cannot be there, calling, sending a message to let your loved one know you are thinking about them can help ease their pain. Knowing that you are loved is essential to help ease pain and suffering.

Suffering can be caused by many different reasons. Suffering can be physical or mental or both. Suffering can be from a disease, loss of friends and family. Suffering can come in many different shapes and forms. Suffering is a complex phenomenon that is not easily explained and can be different for every being.

What does suffering mean to you? I would love to hear your thoughts.

If I look at the definition of suffering it means “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship”. Interestingly this definition only touches the surface of suffering.

Suffering comes with pain and tears. My question is: can we make it better?

There are different degrees of suffering. A mother losing a child is one of the most unimaginable pain. People being tortured and people being sold and trafficked, used as the property of others, and being abused. There is suffering that can come from our minds and bodies.

Why do we create suffering for ourselves?

We have been in constant war against each other.

Chris Hedges wrote an article in the New York Times in 2003 stating that in the past 3400 years humanity has been only at peace for about 8% of that time 268 years. In 2003 we had 30 wars going on in the world.

Chris defines war as where more than 1000 lives are lost. I wonder about all the occasions where fewer lives are lost, they do not classify as war, yet when you add all the people who died trying to survive hardship it sounds war to me.

Our current world population is 7,909, 827, 633 at the moment I am writing this article. Our population is continuing to increase by every second. People were born and died every second. It is amazing as well as scary to see how quickly the numbers change.

You can check out the current world population here https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

As of today, we have 5,216,406 deaths from coronavirus in the world. The number is continuing to increase.

Coronavirus is just one of the diseases that infect and kills people causing pain and suffering. There are too many acute and chronic diseases and infections that cause pain and suffering to count and write down in this article. Human suffering is more than suffering from physical pain caused by diseases and injuries.

Ulrich Diehl in his article “Human Suffering as a Challenge for the Meaning of Life” (2009) asserts that human suffering contribution is from philosophical psychology. Ulrich discusses that human suffering is more than suffering from disease or pain. He describes that humans can suffer as not feeling being whole, related to the lack of purpose in life. The lack of purpose can be spiritual, cognitive, or emotional. Ulrich calls this description to be part of “the ethics of suffering”.

Dr. Juan Carlos Marvizon (2015) in his article “The Uniqueness of Human Suffering” discusses similarities and differences of human and animal suffering and raises the question of whether they are similar or not. Dr. Marvizon reveals recent findings that during our evolution there was a change in the brain and how it processed pain. Our brain can associate emotions with pain creating negative emotions in the insula area. Steven Gambardella argues that all creatures can suffer.

Steven Gambardella in his article “Our Suffering Has a Meaning” discusses human suffering that starts from birth. I would like to add to that idea that even before birth the fetus can also feel and can react to the mother’s emotions, sounds in the environment, and harmful chemicals including addictive medications, radioactivity, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals for example. Thus, human suffering can extend to unborn children as well.

https://medium.com/the-sophist/our-suffering-has-meaning-316485335668

Steven Gambardella makes a great point where suffering can be beneficial when it comes to identifying diseases

“The mere absence of suffering could be considered good fortune. In times and places where medical science is not as available, illnesses that are easily remedied for us cause an immense amount of suffering”

Looking at human suffering and the universal consciousness the question arises: Why do we suffer if the universe is perfect the way it is?

A great description by Steven Gambardella “Our partial understanding of the universe prevents us from seeing the greater good of all things that pass, even things that seem irredeemably terrible. This is a very similar way that suffering is given a cosmic meaning.”

He further discusses the difficulty of explaining to a parent of a young child why the child has to suffer. It is a complex question, and the answer can depend on people’s belief systems and their understanding of our place in the universe. Religions explain the need for suffering to be able to fulfill a destiny that led to learning or enlightenment.

There is a lot to discuss when it comes to human suffering. There are many continuing questions and possible answers in this area that have not been explored yet.

References

Chris Hedges (2003) Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html

Noelia Bueno-Gómez (2017) Retrieved from https://peh-med.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s13010-017-0049-5.pdf

Juan Carlos Marvizon, Ph.D. (2015) Retrieved from https://speakingofresearch.com/2015/01/12/the-uniqueness-of-human-suffering-suffering-from-pain/

Steven Gambardella (2020) Retrieved from https://medium.com/the-sophist/our-suffering-has-meaning-316485335668

Ulrich Diehl (2009) Retrieved from https://philpapers.org/archive/DIEHSA.pdf

Worldometer (2021) Retrieved from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/