“The further we advance, the fewer are left do judge us.”
I wrote that phrase about progress, working on oneself, but after a discussion with @socraticmthd I wondered if this also applies for something that is very related to personal progress – suffering.
(Here’s the original post, it’s a bit more prose style than usually, but I’m quite content with it.)
I believe and express frequently that everyone suffers at their own level. What is excruciating to one, is barely a mosquito bite to the other, both physically and metaphysically. And that mostly depends on former experiences. On how much one has suffered before, and what one has suffered.
Now, just like with personal progress, personal suffering also has a scale. And especially in a world that is constantly driven towards comfort, there’s less and less suffering in comparison to decades ago. On one hand, that’s awesome, on the other, it bears some risks, as always when a balance is broken. That balance could be expressed in a scale. Let’s say 50 is average, considering the suffering of all humans. 0 is no suffering, 100 is “experienced all the suffering possible”.
Where are you at?
That's a very hard one to answer out of the blue. But given all the privileges I enjoy, I’m probably below 50. When I look at the people that surround me, with similar privileges, I’d say I’m around 40 maybe. And when I go out into the communities and see how some people live, I’m probably down to 30 – considering all 8.3 billion human beings in the world, and that a big part lives in areas where suffering is a whole different ballgame then what I know.
The average is quite high.
Everyone who has lost a child has suffered greater than I. Everyone who has been sexually abused has suffered greater than I. And just those two metric raise the average quite high, leaving me in the round of the fortunate. And there are many more. They’d look at my suffering and be like “Huh?”
Or not?
Probably not. If they’re empathetic. Empathy is not imagining being in the same situation, having to endure the exact same suffering. It’s not the famous “putting oneself in someone else’s shoes.” The latter is a rational exercise, the former is a truly emotional connection. You feel the pain the other person feels, but you don’t feel the pain that you would feel being in the same situation. And that is very important.
It would be a shock for me to suddenly feel all the pain and suffering between my 30 and let’s say a person that is at 80. All at once. Me, being me, with my experience, suddenly getting the whole dosage without any steps. On the other side, the person at 80 would not feel a thing at all considering my suffering. Empathy bridges that. And more importantly, it’s not egocentric. It’s not about me feeling the same extend of suffering, it’s about me feeling the suffering of the other.
I know you all hate math, but…
It’s useful as a metaphor here. If I went from 30 to 40, that would be a 33% increase. If the other person went from 80 to 90, that would only be a 12,5% increase. In my theory, those 10 points are hence a lot harder on me than on the other person. We were empathetic with each other (again following my definition and theory), they would perceive my suffering as greater than theirs.
Brains wrecked yet?
I hope I was able to explain this. It does make a lot of sense in my head, and I read through this text a couple of times and don’t find a better way to explain it.
What’s the point anyway?
Being able to understand each other better. To connect on a deeper level. Thinking this through made me personally more aware of others as individuals. I hope it can make me more considerate of them, of their unique situations. That it can reduce my judgmental side a little, which is something that I’m growing to despise increasingly:
People judging people, seeing specks of sawdust everywhere.
Yes, I'm paraphrasing the bible here. Maybe there's more to that Verse 41, Chapter 6, Luke. I feel like the less I judge them, the better I can help people for real. But that’s a whole different story that I’ll have to figure out in another thought.
Thank you for reading!
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!