#NotJust Sufferings: Are(n't) they Blessings too?
Reflections on the age-old condition and phenomenon of human pain and suffering, and our eternal quest to find life and meaning in, through and beyond them
Hello Dear,
Thank you for being here! I know it is not an easy or trivial choice, especially when there are practically infinite other destinations where you could have directed your finite attention. Well, that reminds me of a belief I have held for some time now.
How to wisely allocate our attention is nothing less than a crucial life skill, which can spell the difference betweeen growth and decay, or life and death, for not just individuals, but all formal and informal social organizations such as communities, institutions, nations and for humanity itself.
In case you read the previous post, this is part of the reason why I have referred to Indian Information Service, the civil service to which I happen to belong, as Indian Attention Service, a service which has and can play a crucial role in facilitating and guiding the wise and judicious allocation of the finite attentional resources of citizens and the public at large.
We will have much more to speak and think of attention in the future posts of this #NotJust Email Newsletter. In the meantime, if you are finding some value in being here with me, you can check out all previous posts here, you can subscribe to the newsletter by entering your email ID below. Maybe you could also consider sharing about it with one person in your life?
For today, I invite you to join me in exploring a universal phenomenon. [An interesting question arises here: as a matter of principle, how much attention should we pay to local or individual issues, versus universal or collective issues? For one, local issues help us understand and might be a cause or reflection or forerunner of universal issues. And universal issues which affect everyone, even if they appear distant in their impact, might very well come to shake our very existence one day very soon. Think climate change. So, how we differentiate issues as local vs. universal, individual vs. collective, is a fundamental and key question! The two might often be and may perhaps need to be dissolving seamlessly into each other. What say? On this note, I am happy to have discovered just now a very promising UNESCO paper on the need to link universal and local values, for creating a sustainable future which protects world heritage. Read this document here.]
The Question of Our Suffering
Well, let us come back to the universal phenomenon we were about to dive into: the question of human suffering. In fact, would it not be right to say that this - the alleviation of human suffering - has perhaps been the most enduring and the most important mission humanity has been pursuing for millenia, both at individual and collective levels?
In this context, I am reminded of an observation made by the great Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen:
“What moves us, reasonably enough, is not the realization that the world falls short of being completely just – which few of us expect – but that there are clearly remediable injustices.” - Amartya Sen
Yes, the world can be much better, a far less painful place, than what it is today, which makes and should make our existing deprivations so much more revolting and objectionable, and in fact, another source of pain and suffering in itself.
Let us change track a bit and ask ourselves another question. How much of suffering have we - each one of us as an individual - experienced in our life so far on this planet? You know, thinking of myself, at one level, the natural answer I am inclined to give is: very little, or rather little. I have been rather blessed and fortunate in many ways; people, the world and life have been immensely kind to me, despite my numerous frailties and failings; in terms which I hear often, I have “little reason to complain”. But then, this raises another series of questions. How can anyone say he or she has suffered but little when there is so much suffering in the world? If we say or think we have suffered little, could it not or does it not mean that we are being selfish, that this is because we have not yet made the tribulations and sufferings of “others” as those of “our” own? Isn’t this because there exists a divide between “us” and “them”, between we as individuals and everyone else?
The answer to this could be at least twofold; for one, our physical reality - where each one of us has a body of our own - does tend to make us believe that we are a community of “individuals”. On the other hand, the various visible and invisible ways in which our lives and destinies are connected, interwoven and intertwined with each other point perhaps to the larger reality that our existence as individuals is more an illusion or a delusion or an approximation. Or maybe it is that both these realities do and should coexist, that the way to be and become is to be cognizant, appreciative and mindful of both dimensions of our individual and shared identity?
Yes, come to think of it, of course, it is not right for me to say that I have no reason to complain. There is so much suffering in the world, even right amongst my immediate as well as not-so-close family members, friends, relatives and of course in our local, domestic and global societies. Life sure does seem unfair, very unfair, and nothing less than cruel, when we think of the plight of so many of our fellow brethren, or of the world as a whole, isn’t it?
At the same time, the remarkable and beautiful thing about life, about our lives, about we human beings, about the human condition, is that we do not just go on despite all these blighting travails and what should have been paralyzing traumatizations, but we also find in these very sufferings the most unexpected and most powerful wellsprings of beauty, goodness, strength, resilience, creativity, wisdom, humaneness and divinity. It is this infinite capacity of the human spirit to rise above even infinite depths of misery which I believe is the key to our survival, our continued revitalization and rejuvenation, as individuals, communities, societies and as a species.
What say?
Let me share a short piece of reflection I wrote along these lines, in May 2022.
[Beginning of a short piece of reflection I wrote in May 2022]
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.” - Aristotle
I have found that we often tend to conclude or reason that darkness means there is no point aspiring or working for a better tomorrow. It is taken as a reason or excuse for inaction and surrender.
However rational these concerns may seem to us, I think it is also true that it is the darkest moments which have the greatest power to manifest the hidden, latent, undiscovered, unrealized and unexplored beauty and goodness within us. The real game is the storm, the tempest. In facing the gravest sorrows and tribulations lies our calling, our deepest joys and greatest meanings. Hence, we can say that the darkness of the present may very well be the very reason which calls us to continue to keep up the mantle of hope, to light candles of yearning and inspired action for a better future.
At least, I hope and want to believe so. 😊
As Viktor Frankl recalls in his book based on experiences in World War II concentration camps:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl, from his 1946 book “Man's Search for Meaning”
[End of the short piece of reflection I wrote in May 2022]
So, here we have the book recommendation for today: Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl [I read this book in 2019 or 2020 I guess, and yes, I have picked it up a few times afterwards as well, need to reread].
There is a lot more which I have written about suffering, a lot more which I would like to share with you. But for today, let me take a somewhat different route and confine to sharing with you the first and the only film review I have written so far. It is the review of a film titled Chronic, written and directed by Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco. I got the golden opportunity to write the review, since I was able to watch the film, when it was featured at the 46th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), held in Goa in the year 2015, almost eight years ago. And I was able to attend the film festival and watch the film since I had gone to Goa in official capacity, on behalf of Press Information Bureau, in order to faciliate and execute the public communications on the festival, so as to inspire more and more people to join in the eternal celebration of films.
Fine then, over to the film review…
[Beginning of the review of Chronic, an IFFI 2015 film; review was written in November 2015]
Chronic: A Story of Men and Women Who Knew Infinity!
Life is short, or so they say. True, except for those whom it is infinite. For whom suffering is not just a pervasive and all-encompassing reality, but also the only key to survival! Yes, we are talking about terminally ill patients – for whom life often seems impossible and death appears to be always so close, yet so far.
Watch ‘Chronic’, a 2015 English film by the young Mexican director Michel Franco, to partake in the stories of such men and women who knew the infinity of human suffering. The film stars English actor and director Tim Roth in the lead role of David – a highly committed, professional and effective male nurse who seeks to alleviate this suffering by his cool-headed and warm-hearted care. His steadfast dedication for the welfare of his patients means that he enters into very strong relationships with every person he cares for. So much so that his life revolves around his patients; he needs them, as much as they need him.
The director narrates the story powerfully, effortlessly and evocatively through a screenplay that bagged the Best Screenplay award at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. The resounding sound of silence has been used very effectively by Michel Franco in infusing a mystical depth, mysterious beauty and intense solemnity into each and every scene. This has been beautifully accomplished by employing a silence that is not only acoustic, but visual, temporal and narrative as well. The multidimensional use of silence plays a central role in instilling an extraordinary ordinariness and effervescent vitality into scenes which portray strings of micro-events that are in isolation absolutely commonplace and highly forgettable.
Acoustic silence has been used by tapping exclusively into the voice of natural sounds to communicate thematic gravity. For example, as David bids a reluctant euthanasia-based farewell to a cancer patient who insisted that enough is more than enough, the gentle sound of the plastic cover containing the ‘final’ syringes sends a chill not only to the heart of the dying patient, but also to those of the anxious audience. It brings into sharp relief, the persistent monotony of tragedy and the gruelling inevitability of suffering in the lives of these souls – to which death appears to be the only effective tonic.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, an ‘incomplete’ one is worth a million! This is what ‘Chronic’ teaches us. The lady weeps inconsolably and he seeks to comfort her, but they are not to be seen; three of them are sharing a drink and a piece of their heart, but we get to see one of them only in the crucible of our imagination. The multitude of such scenes, strung together in a wonderful fashion, have led to the delivery of an exceptionally authentic experience of stark reality.
Time stands still in the film, but only to the ever-impatient. The slowness within a scene, coupled with the fast and seamless transition between scenes, vests in the film a distinct richness and unique profundity. It is eminently capable in bringing out the timeless value and eternal meaning of the traumas of terminal illness, played out through a seemingly ceaseless succession of moments which are otherwise fleeting and apparently inconsequential.
The film employs narrative silence too, impelling the viewer to not only connect the dots, but to locate the frame as well. The confluence and interplay of the different types of quietude is reflected in the characters too. There is a mystery waiting to be discovered and explored in every character – a mystery that never ceases to amaze, that promises to be different for each one, each time it is experienced.
Yes, the film stands out for its remarkable ability in not only telling a story, but also in its awe-inspiring power in making its audience co-creators and active participants in the storytelling process. By providing a multi-layered silence to the essential fabric as well as individual elements of the movie, the filmmakers gift the audience a very rich and precious emotional, cognitive and intellectual interpretive space – a space that is full of boundless possibilities for the imaginative explorer of life. It thus enables everyone who is interested in human suffering to themselves explore, rediscover and better appreciate the infinity and beauty of this chronic redemptive and cathartic human condition.
Fittingly, the film ends on an infinite note, in an infinitesimal moment. Delve deep into this singularly beautiful portrayal of humanity, which was screened at the just-concluded International Film Festival of India 2015! To know infinity, yourself and others – better, ever better!
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”
– “Auguries of Innocence”, by William Blake.
[End of the review of Chronic, an IFFI 2015 film; review was written in November 2015]
By the way, the review was originally published on the blog of Press Information Bureau (available here).
So what do you think? What has been your experience with the cosmic phenomenon of human suffering? Did reading this article add some value to you in some way? What thoughts and questions come to your mind? Please feel free to share with me at newdheep@gmail.com or in public domain in the comments section! Thank you once again, for being with me here! Let all of us be able to better face up to, cope with, prevail over, rise from and above all find nothing but deep, enduring, unexpected and ever-new sources of timeless joy, meaning and love in the suffering which visits us and our dear and near ones, and the whole world. Thank you! - Dheep.