Is suffering happiness?
In the age of science, it has become fashionable to believe in things that are neither false nor proven. With all that we know about the world, it seems that we feel obligated to preserve a sense of mystery, for otherwise our innocence would be forever lost. I don’t begrudge anyone for feeling this way. I too find myself searching for answers in places where answers don’t exist. As a matter of fact, I am not even sure if the right question ever presented itself in the first place.
Not only has information and knowledge surpassed the sense of physical freedom, we now have to contend with the seduction of nostalgia, which turns ordinary things into false markers for meaning. It seems that we have simultaneously reached the pinnacle of meaning and its absolute negation. Life is a constant struggle to find meaning in the elusive past—not just of another era, but of possibilities unrealized. Since modern doctrine assumes the inherent greatness of human beings, and since greatness by definition can only be attained by the few, we find ourselves engulfed in a pervasive sense of loss, for we strive to secure our claim to greatness only for it to evade our grasp.
Heroes of our own story, we brave the sea of madness to make our way home, and yet, home, as a concept, always seems just out of reach. We can see the island emerging from under the fog, but we prefer the mystery of the fog to being home. We romanticize the idea of being home but we hate the mundanity of life. We want to replace every inconvenience with a mystery, every hardship with a promise. Yet we know no grand bargain can replace our responsibility to live. For some, the panacea is common sense. Accepting the burden of responsibility, they contend, will return common sense to the world. But one has to ask, have people lost their way, or has the world shifted beneath our feet? The ideological struggle that once defined the struggle for meaning has been replaced by a kind of comic horror in which nothing is quite what it seems. “The world” is no longer a concept defined by its essence, but the eternal specter of change, shapeless, menacing, and intentionally undefinable. Conflicts are asymmetrical, information is prejudice, freedom is safety. This is no political nightmare. This is the nightmare of modernity.
In spite of this, what remains clear and universal is the desire to understand. The desire to understand who we are and how we go forward does not require dogma or politics to exist. In that sense, because human desire is both universally shared and naturally adaptable, it is the only force capable of contending with change. We must resist the call to abandon the human desire for understanding just to feel what the experts call “happiness” or “inner peace.” No, happiness is not suffering, and suffering is not happiness. The subjective interpretation of emotions does not replace the essence of emotions.
Desires existed before interpretation. It was the desire for understanding that created the act of interpretation. Desires make up the essence of human beings. The forces of change that seek to replace humanity with something inhuman are determined to objectify our desires. They wear the cloak of humanism to hide among us, while leading us down the path of hell. Meaning cannot be found in definitions. As long as we hold onto political ideology and schools of thought, we will always be rendered meaningless in the struggle for our future.
Meaning is the pursuit of happiness in spite of suffering. Meaning is moving beyond the aesthetics of greatness, and finding home, exactly where we believe it is.
