Fairy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 8:22 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 2:03 pm
Fairy wrote: ↑Fri Jun 26, 2026 8:56 am
I just wonder why some people lose their lucidity, as Nietzsche did. Yet others can endure the most unimaginable suffering and pain, yet still die happy and content, because they understand what God is? What are your thoughts about that, if you don’t mind sharing of course?
I don't mind. Let me suggest that the answer is nothing we can't understand.
I know you know what it is to be in labour. You know that quite horrible pain is coming. How long it will last, you cannot know in advance. How many contractions will there be? Will there be ripping? Will a caesarean be necessary? An episeotomy? How much blood? Will the epidural work? There are plenty of worries, and much pain to be endured, plausibly. How long will healing take? Will there be any birth difficulties? Who can say?
How then can any woman accept that? How can a woman even laugh with joy at the end of it? Is it not because she holds her new son or daughter close to her heart and rejoices that a new life has come into the world, with new love, new hopes...but how has she so quickly forgotten the pain, the fear, the suffering?
Because it had
meaning. It was all aimed at the glorious goal of a new child. And when you see that your suffering as produced that at which it was aimed, it's all not only bearable, but joy follows it.
So it is with all suffering. If there is purpose, meaning, direction, value in what is being suffered-for, then it is not only possible to endure it, but even to be happy. But if all that suffering were for nothing, then how could one be joyful?
That's life. The things we suffer that have
meaning are endurable...even heroic...and even happy. They can be, as we say, "worth it all." The things we suffer because of our own stupidity, veniality or the meanness of the world itself, these things deprive us of happiness. It's
meaning that makes all things worthwhile.
Amazing. Absofukinlutely amazing.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I have to agree.
Having experienced the excruciating pain of 4 natural births after choosing the natural way, even as epidural was offered I didn’t fancy the palaver of such a procedure. So chose to put my faith in natures way and trust it to deliver. I was lucky as each birth was without any complications. And yes, the joy and relief that comes after the pain is indescribably profound and satisfying. It’s almost like watching yourself perform miracles, it’s amazing and despite the pain, you soon become aware of the astonishing feats the human body is capable of, and what it can do all by itself is miraculous to observe.
"Miraculous" is the right word, I think. Men can only stand back and marvel at it. A new life brought into the world -- it almost seems to replay the original miracle of Creation...so much out of "nothing," called into being (so it seems) merely by love. And yet, this miracle, such a godlike human moment of love and creation, is denigrated and despised so badly that people perform it, then reject the creative outcome and kill 73 million miracles ever year.
And we might well wonder, does such a civilization, so hateful of life, even survive? Can a species that so despises its own reproductive miracle last?
Also experienced a few extremely deep and dark nights of the soul, and survived even those, yes, the most difficult challenges in life are all endurable, and I’m eternally grateful for each experience as they have had a profound impact on my life transforming it into better and better versions of myself. I have started to appreciate the miracle of being alive with more compassion empathy and resilience, I just simply understand God’s ways, it takes my breath away. I have no fear of dying and know that when I do my body will dissolve into the ocean of God’s infinite Love. I’ve been through some really unimaginable shit in my personal life, but none of what’s happened to me has changed the fact that I’m still in love with life and have never become bitter or resentful. I’m still standing and shining brighter than ever. I have absolute trust in God’s providence, for those who trust in the process of life to know what it’s doing.
Yep, I get that sentiment -- your experience is unique, of course, but we don't live in this world without learning how to suffer. Nevertheless, there is suffering that crushes, and suffering that is worth it all. It can even be the same kind of suffering...but if the meaning is in place, the unendurable becomes the heroic, the transcendent, the noble sacrifice, the burden-to-be-born, instead of a crushing absurdity.
Even Camus, the Atheist, realized this. That's why his "tragic hero," Sisyphus, is supposedly able to transcend his suffering. But Camus's solution is dry and empty: he says Sisyphus must "choose his rock." This isn't correct, because it means Sisyphus must simply embrace his own misery. Rather, what Sisyphus needs to know is that the rock-rolling could tend to some higher purpose or end that could contextualize the suffering for him, and teach him that his suffering would not only end, but would have "an end" -- a purpose, a value, something done in service of the higher and eternal. Then, and only then, could we truly imagine Sisyphus being happy, as Camus demands we do at the end of his account of the myth.
Meaning transforms suffering. That's a basic axiom of human existence, it seems.
percent agree with this. Thanks. 