suffering

Emmett Shear @eshear I know that it's obvious, almost definitional, but roll with me: how do we know is suffering bad? How would the world look different if suffering was good, instead? What would you have to observe to tell the difference? [Attached image: painterly portrait of an older bald/white-haired man in sci-fi armor with a blue collar apparatus and camera-like device, resembling a video game character portrait. Overlaid dialogue text (game UI style): "What do I care for your suffering? Pain, even agony, is no more than information fed to the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind."]

``` Tetraspace 💎 @TetraspaceWest Suffering is great! But, like, rich Westerner who is good at arranging their life levels of suffering, not the amount of suffering that the average human experiences. > QUOTED: Pops Maellard @MellardPops · May 17 > Replying to @poisonjr > Bad argument. Sad scenes can add emotional depth to the movie and make it stronger. Movies aren't real. Real life is real. What's the point of suffering in real life? 3:53 AM · May 18, 2025 · 1,313 Views [3 comments, 5 retweets, 51 likes, 3 bookmarks] Tetraspace @TetraspaceWest · 5h I'm happy a lot of the time and choose to enjoy a lot of things, but in the way of humans, not of superhappies, and definitely not in the way where dying of malnutrition-amplified malaria would be an important part of my arc in the cosmos. [1 comment, 12 likes, 169 views] Tetraspace @TetraspaceWest · 5h Of course few people accept answers about the point of cluster headaches, or the point of someone getting depression starting 11 and then killing themselves at 24, or the point of a malnourished child's impaired immune system failing to fight malaria, because there is no point. [1 comment, 14 likes, 152 views] Tetraspace 💎 @TetraspaceWest · 5h And perhaps we lack the language to talk about those things, as distinct from the strength and determination of getting knocked down and getting back up again, the melancholy and beauty of art stemming from the pain of a breakup, the aching muscles of training for a marathon. [2 comments, 11 likes, 312 views] Tetraspace 💎 @TetraspaceWest · 5h Something that cares about humans would give us the latter, and not the former (or, something better than the latter, of subtlety and beauty we can scarcely imagine). The latter can not be used as a shield for the former, because the former is not justified. ```

eternalist @eternalism_4eva · Apr 19 I'd argue this is a shallow gloss of what is meant by suffering if you are of a mind to accept reality and "ride the wave", then you are closer to liberation than you think. "suffering" is not just painful or unpleasant experiences, but rather the frame of mind that asks "why must -I-" go through this, "why do -I- deserve this". if you are pleased with your "suffering" then in important ways it's not "suffering" at all as conceived by Buddhism Stoicism is a great Western cousin. the extent you have a Stoic frame is largely the extent to which you have a Buddhist frame, modulo self-view unfortunately the word suffering is very polysemous -- the lack of more rigorous terminology in common use here makes many of these discussions rather meandering