building the capacity to suffer with grace

Goldilocks zone of suffering, Solzhenitsyn’s Commencement Address at Harvard, re-reading Brothers Karamazov, writing good vs living good, Amor Fati

by Kevin Kia

To create is to commune with the divine. And writing the truth might be one of the pinnacles of creation. To be honest, I haven’t been very successful with that this past month. See, I’ve decided to spend the free time that I have in more near-term utilitarian ways than trying to write the best piece I possibly can. There’s this popular opinion that you have to be a little unbalanced to be a good writer, that the best writers need to have some sort of mental illness that pushes them and gives them energy.

Well, this month I’ve gone in the other direction, I’ve spent the free time trying to become more balanced, because honestly, between writing good or living good, I would choose living good any time. This is why again, I’m writing this at the last minutes of the arbitrary deadline no one except me cares about, which is why again, dear reader, I’m sending you this barely edited stream-of-consciousness piece that I hope you’ll enjoy.

See, the “me time” this month has been spent on saunas and swinging kettlebells because my current goal is raising my tolerance for stress. The reason: we’ve started the extremely fun and enjoyable process of building a house, which not only teaches you a lot of life lessons in a very short amount of time, but also demands the nerves of steel. And the nerves of steel, I’ve come to realize, are built early in the day. I’ve come to realize that the way to have an easy day is to start it by eating a frog. This will sound like I’ve stole it from the wall of the gym, and I apologize for that, but I’ve come to realize that we are not born with the right mindset, but it has to be earned. It has to be earned by something very important: by suffering.

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Suffering. I think there’s a Goldilocks zone of it, like with being in the state of the Csikszentmihalyi’s flow. If there’s too much of it, you’re struggling to breathe and take in the lessons, if there’s too little of it, you’re decaying. I’ve recently read the Solzhenitsyn’s Commencement Address at Harvard and I think he correctly and brilliantly identified that the major issue of the West is the lack of courage caused by living in the endless state of comfort and material well being. Still, I find his claims of spiritual advancement of the East comical since this spiritual advancement can be very easily confirmed by looking at the current state of Ukraine.

Perhaps this desire for coming to terms with suffering is why I’m attracted to Dostoevsky and the reason I’m re-reading Brothers Karamazov and confirming to myself once again the Nabokov’s claim that you truly only read a book when you read it the second time. See, I like Dostoevsky because he suffered and he went through hell and then survived to tell.

I think his books are the most psychologically deep works of art because there’s something suffering teaches you that can’t be taught otherwise. Becoming a parent made me very aware of that. Becoming a parent is nothing other than rejecting comfort for the sake of suffering with the hope that this suffering is going to come with meaning. That meaning is simply absent from a life of endless comfort. And it does come with meaning. You find out that the meaning of this suffering is to love, to suffer for another is to give love, which is more blessed than to receive it. It grows the soul.

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Suffering ages you spiritually. There’s a wide gap in the depth of character between a person who has been through a lot and the one who has lived in relative comfort, for one reason or another. I think this is the main reason why rich kids don’t make great art. Maybe the prerequisite for creating great writing is not trauma or mental illness, but just having suffered, because that means that you have lived and you have survived to tell.

I can’t find who said this, but some saint once said something along the lines of “God, please make me suffer, because when I suffer, I feel your presence the most” and I find that such a beautiful attitude to have. Praying for suffering because you know your soul will grow with the experience.

The Stoics said “Amor fati” and Meister Eckhart said “If the only prayer you say in your entire life is 'thank you', it will be enough”. Imagine saying “thank you” to anything that happens, good or bad. Imagine never complaining. That’s what I’m trying to work on in my free time. Increasing the capacity for suffering.

As always,
Thank you for reading,
May we suffer with grace,
SH

P.S. The crows have become quiet in our little town and now I can hear some other birds singing happier tunes during the rare moments of silence. The other day I saw a stork in the field. The spring is near.