~ Where Do You Find Meaning in Your Suffering? ~

[Lacewing]

in the moment, as a child, i never thought i was suffering. To me that was just how life was.

Me too. I felt continually exposed to harshness and danger from the adults in my life... and that's just how life was. Despite the trauma of it, I always seemed focused ahead (even from my earliest years)... on finding my way through, and seeing other potentials. That's just how I've been geared to moved through life. I feel compassion for people who suffer... but I don't really relate to it as an ongoing state. I want to tell such people how much more there can always be... but perhaps for them, there isn't. I don't know. Bill continually seems to superimpose what he experiences, as reality for everyone, dismissing all other viewpoints... so perhaps that's all he can fathom or allow without feeling personally threatened somehow.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Think I can help you in two counts immensely.


Number one - YES active members don't answer you because your questions are framed in a way that may be suitable for you but are NOT honest, inquisitive questioning.

In short, you come with an obvious pre-conceived answer to you open question. That's no fun.



Number two - What I meant by attempted to answer my question...you again frame your answer with too many words. Too many restrictions of your thought. Makes you appear weak or too talkative.

* Study almost everyone else here. We make short, simple statements. Then we stand behind those statements if they are questioned. You try to supersede any questioning. You're constantly attempting to cover your ass.


Hope that helps...








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[Lacewing]

Think I can help you in two counts immensely...

Who are you talking to?

[henry quirk]

I think Bill was throwin' poop -- chimp-style -- at ken.

[Terrapin Station]

Wait--I was asking about your personal experience. You're saying that you've had all of those issues?

No. I thought about suicide regularly for a long time but never quite mustered a proper "attempt". No natural disasters either. The other problems apply. Live long enough and stuff will happen to you, yes?

Well, I'm in my 50s and I haven't experienced quite a few of those things.

Do you see suffering as something that involves psychological pain or significant psychological distress?

Good question and I don't know.

The reason I ask is that you list stuff like "itching." I could see extreme, basically pathological cases of itching as causing suffering, but I sure wouldn't characterize a normal, everyday itch as suffering.

Why I'm asking is that I never feel that I have a firm grasp on how people are using the term "suffering." People seem to use it for a range of things that's so broad that it makes me wonder what the heck the term is even supposed to refer to, what connotation it's supposed to have (re whether it's negative or not), etc.

[Terrapin Station]

ken, you had said, "If others are suffering, then how could you be (truly) happy?"

So I countered with, "If others are happy, then how could you be (truly) suffering?"

In other words, what I'm commenting on there is the logic of the idea that you're apparently forwarding. If the idea is that just in case others feel x, how can you not also feel x, because you possess empathy, and that disallows having (only or "truly") the "opposite" state, then that should go for any way that others feel, not just one subset of how they feel. If you'd say that it wouldn't go for any arbitrary way that others feel, why not?

Of course, there's a larger problem with that logic in that different people feel all sorts of different ways, and if some people feeling that way is sufficient via empathy for you to also feel that way a bit, then each person is going to feel a whole crapload of often incompatible ways. So it can't really be a simple matter of just in case some people feel x, then as an empathetic person, you too will also feel x to some extent, and not be "truly" the opposite of x (ignoring problems that the idea of opposition might have, by the way).

Well, so then you came back with a comment where on the happiness side, what mattered was only if EVERYONE was happy (a la "ALL"), but where on the suffering side, you made zero mention of whether EVERYONE/ALL were suffering. Just SOME people suffering was enough.

So I asked you the justification for that lack of parallelism. Which you still have not addressed.

You did say, "Obviously, if ALL others are suffering, then you would not be (truly) happy." Well, sure, one's self is part of ALL, so if ALL are suffering, then so is one's self.

Likewise, if ALL are "truly" happy, then that includes one's self. One's self is part of ALL.

But that doesn't explain why (a) "If others are suffering, then how could you be (truly) happy (even though you're not personally suffering)" follows logically, but (b) "If others are happy, then how could you be (truly) suffering (even though you're not personally happy)" does not. Why does (a) only need some, but not ALL, sufferers, but (b) needs ALL, and not just some, happy people?

[Terrapin Station]

b]Number on[/b]e - YES active members don't answer you because your questions are framed in a way that may be suitable for you but are NOT honest, inquisitive questioning . . .

Meanwhile, from what I've observed of your posts so far--not just in this thread, and I'm not at all limiting it to you interacting with me--it doesn't seem like you ever actually engage in a conversation with anyone. You seem more like a permanent, one-man peanut gallery.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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The same things that ail you ail me & everyone else who is reading this philosophically important thread.


Our bodies are frail, our minds are static.

The world is forever changing & we don't know why. THAT is what I mean by we are in this world but not of this world.


We suffer. We suffer for a multitude of reasons. We suffer mentally, physically & emotionally...until we die.


You will die - if you're not dead already. World just keeps spinnin!







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[Terrapin Station]

Bill, are you just botting canned replies? I addressed this very same post above a day or two ago.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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I was just shooting from the hip...


BTW you are allowed to actually focus-in on the specific philosophical scope of this thread...& what the hell, you could actually submit a post in relation to that.





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[Lacewing]

BTW, Bill, you are allowed to stop being an ass and take responsibility for the things you say, and actually respond to the questions/points that people pose as a result... anytime at all... instead of continually using this forum for your own fucking self-absorbed billboard.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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We may have broached this philosophical topic a bit before you arrived on the scene.


Basically - each of us use this forum as our own personal billboard. Nothin wrong in that...matter-of-fact the nature of this medium almost demands that personal billboard thingy.







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[Lacewing]

We may have broached this philosophical topic a bit before you arrived on the scene.

We have broached a LOT MORE SINCE THEN.

Basically - each of us use this forum as our own personal billboard.

No, WE don't. MOST of us interact with each other and explain the things we say when people point out issues or questions. We don't just act arrogant and detached and tell people to stay on topic. There's not even any fucking topic to stay on (as people have pointed out to you) because you just post random pictures and phrases, and then expect people to have any clue what your wacked out trip is.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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You sort-of delivered the fresh example I was looking for.

Your suffering is your inability to understand other posters here.

Your related meaning to this is your verbal wish to understand me and others here even more deeply.




So, thank you for attempting to understand & thank you for providing a GREAT example, that we all can use, in relation to this very interesting topic.







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[Dalek Prime]

I agree that suffering is inevitable. There's no escape unless you have an amazing way of looking at things. It's the fundamental problem of life.

Bingo.