On how misery scales or, license to feel bad

If you spend some time around people — and I can’t stress enough how much I recommend avoiding this if at all possible — you’ll hear conversations centered on how someone has it bad, and how others have it worse.

Just now, I saw a post mocking former child actors because they remember parts of their childhoods as bad, even though those same things looked kind of luxurious at first glance. One girl complained about flying a lot. Lots of planes.

I can relate.

I hate commercial flying with the passion of a thousand suns. Are you feeling important and relevant? Just take a domestic flight. You’ll feel like cattle ready for slaughter in no time.

The thing about misery is this: it is not weighted, nor averaged. Your misery doesn’t grow according to your neighbor’s, and his doesn’t depend on yours.

Let’s do a deep dive into misery, shall we?

On the nature of suffering.

You’re sitting on a beautiful beach. The sun is shining. Beautiful sea, beautiful girls, the setting is apparently perfect.

But then, there it is.

You become aware of that small sensation at the back of your throat. You’re thirsty. Not very thirsty yet, but enough for the sensation to become noticeable.

Also, there is sand between your fingers, and the sun is starting to burn your skin. You are in no immediate pain, but you are suffering, and it is only going to get worse.

We experience some level of suffering every second of every day. It is, probably, the first thing babies experience when they breathe for the first time: shock. Pain. The violent arrival of air.

That’s why they cry. That’s why they scream.

Filling their tiny lungs with air, the same air that tastes sweet to you, must feel like an invasion to them. A body used only to fluid suddenly has to negotiate with the sky.

And that is the first lesson.

Life begins not with happiness, not with understanding, not with a little inspirational quote embroidered on a hospital pillow.

Life begins with discomfort and pain, because being born can’t be painless.

And then, naturally, you shit yourself.

Dignity, as a concept, does not survive first contact with biology.

And if you were born in Sparta — at least according to the sort of ancient stories that make historians sigh and screenwriters salivate — you might even get washed with wine.

Which means holding down your liquor right out of the gate.

Man.

Spartans were crazy.

But Spartans aside, growing up is painful.

Literally.

The phrase “growing pains” exists, which is a wonderful way to subtract value from the experience of kids everywhere. Chest pain because the thorax is expanding. Joint pain. Muscle pain. Bones stretching like badly managed infrastructure.

And let’s avoid all the adolescence nonsense, because that’s what Metalcore is for, okay?

And these are not big, acceptable pains. These are the pains you are expected to deal with silently.

And here is where pain tolerance meets plain old callousness, and pain becomes a thing for the Olympics.

Pain Olympics.

Never, ever Google that, okay?

There is a social expectation that you should suffer in silence, take it “like a man” or “to the chest,” and just go with the flow. Saying “I’m in pain” loudly is in bad form.

You? You are in pain?

There are kids dying of AIDS in Africa! And war everywhere! And I know this woman who was born with no brain, so she just “thinks” out of her gallbladder and subsists on spite.

We tell children to stop crying.
We tell teenagers they are being dramatic.
We tell adults to be grateful.
We tell rich people they are not allowed to suffer.
We tell poor people suffering is noble.
We tell everyone, somehow, to shut up.

This is the misery scale people carry around in their heads. Not a real scale, of course. More like a broken carnival machine operated by resentment.

War beats divorce.
Poverty beats loneliness.
Cancer beats depression.
Child labor beats child acting.
A dead parent beats a bad parent.
A bad parent beats an annoying parent.
And somewhere, at the very bottom, a man on a domestic flight is told to stop whining because at least the plane has wings.

But suffering is not a tournament bracket.

There are no semifinals where abandonment defeats anxiety, then loses to famine in the championship round.

Pain does not become false because a worse pain exists somewhere else. That would be insane. By that logic, nobody can enjoy anything either, because somewhere, someone is happier.

You like your sandwich?

Shut up. A billionaire is eating lobster on a yacht.

You had a good day?

Fuck you! Somewhere, a golden retriever just discovered snow.

Comparison ruins both directions. It makes your pain illegitimate and your joy embarrassing. It turns existence into a leaderboard, and leaderboards are already one of humanity’s most spiritually corrosive inventions, right after LinkedIn.

The thing to understand about suffering is that there is no merit in it.

There is no badge for misery. No medal. No divine punch card where, after ten silent breakdowns, you get a free personality upgrade.

Any idiot can be uncomfortable. Any idiot can be in pain. Pain is not proof of virtue. Pain is an alarm system.

You feel it because your body wants you to change something. Move. Drink. Sleep. Leave. Speak. Fight. Rest. Stop touching the pan, genius.

So, quietly suffering is not noble by default. Sometimes it is discipline. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it is maturity.

But sometimes it is just betrayal of your own nervous system.

But let’s go deeper, shall we?

Every person can take a different amount of pain. That much is obvious. Scientific, even. And past that point, they break.

But here is the annoying part: even before they break, the pain still counts.

There is a whole branch of philosophy called antinatalism that says, more or less: “Suffering is an inextricable part of human life, and it is immoral to give birth without the consent of the person being born. Since that consent cannot be obtained, the conclusion is: don’t have children.”

That level of rejection of life tends to bring laughter to some people.

“Those sissies. Can’t take their suffering.”

And that is exactly the point.

Why should anyone?

But we’re getting off subject.

One of the craziest books I’ve ever read, proof that the young adult literature world has been done to death, is Sharing Susan, a book written to help that little subset of kids who went home from the hospital with the wrong set of parents.

In this book, the mother says:

“Love is not a candy bar.”

Meaning: you don’t run out of love by giving love.

This was my main excuse through my terrible late teens, then my terrible twenties, part of my terrible thirties, really.

I’m kind of all terrible, but I’m not completely terrible. I just have a lot of love to give.

See?

Well, if love — and me — are not candy bars, then neither is suffering.

Nor is it a competition.

I’ve had to live with chronic pain for almost two years already, and people tend to have one of two reactions:

“Oh, poor thing. None of my suffering counts because yours is worse.”

Or:

“There are people who are suffering far more. Have you looked at Syria these days?”

Yes. Yes, I have. Their situation is improving.

The thing is, both situations miss the point. I watch, talk, think, and write. I’m not good for a lot more, and when people diminish their suffering over mine, I feel we both lose. I try to teach them to share the pain: “My chest hurts and throbs like a second heart is beating inside it.” “Oh shit, that’s too bad. My nail broke, and my finger feels like it’s beating, and I can’t touch anything with it.” “Oh, that sucks. Hope it improves.”

There. Fixed it. Shared suffering without a histrionic need for power-scaling shit.

Want to understand the key part of suffering?

It doesn’t matter.

I don’t want to win, and I don’t mind losing. What’s there to win? More pain?

It’s part of living, and it won’t go away. You can turn it into your personal friend, use it to keep you honest, and use it to decide what efforts are worth it, but you can’t get rid of it. It’s a meaningless part of life, just like pleasure.

What’s important about suffering is what’s important about everything else: what you do with it.

So, from my nihilistic heart, a weird request: be kinder.

It doesn’t matter to the universe if you’re kind, and it doesn’t matter if you’re not, but every single person you see is fighting the fight of their lives: they are living. And they are losing. Soon enough, they’ll be dead, and so will you. The only thing that counts is what you did before, because you spent the first part of eternity being and doing nothing, and that’s what you will do for the rest of it. This? This is your moment in the sun. You can quench the thirst, or you can make it bigger.

Fuck no, I can’t finish this in that high tone. Did you know that the Minions ended up in that cave to avoid having to show them in Waffen-SS uniforms, operating the camps with slapstick and charm? No? Well, now you do.

Fuck off.