Meditation on Human Misery

 

When observing human nature, one may detect different characteristics and see particular behaviors that were initially unconscious or poorly understood. Such conduct can be rational or irrational, and plenty of it may come from evolutionary origins which people do not fully understand. To cause misery to others falls in the category of poorly understood behavior: the decisions of some people may cause misery in others, and enjoyment may be derived from this occurrence. Nevertheless, it cannot be concluded that people generally enjoy making others miserable, unless we refer to a special case of psychopathy; on the contrary, people make decisions that affect other people, and misery might be a necessary consequence of making these decisions, even having a potential positive effect in those of whom misery is being casted upon.

 First, one must define the concept of misery and its potential source in order to understand it. According to the Oxford Dictionary, misery is to be understood as a state of “great physical or mental pain.” It is a synonym of “unhappiness,” “distress,” and “hardship.” With the former definition, it is now possible to find its potential causes: One may feel this way when a natural misfortune occurs, or when somebody makes a decision that results in our rejection or discomfort. For the purpose of this meditation, the later will be the reason to be explored.

Second, it is important to narrow the observation to a particular society. While it is possible to find highly corrupt cultures where lies and pain are the social norm, the western society of the twenty-first Century is far from uncivilized, and it may miraculously be one of the most sophisticated communities that ever existed in human history thus far. American society is within this miracle, and it will be here where this examination will take place.

Moving forward, it is indispensable to also lay down an understanding of human nature, even if superficial. While individuals are indeed capable of great evil that may cause suffering onto others, people are also capable of great good that may cause an improvement to the world. This may become even more complex once one considers the fact that some actions lay on the gray tones of the good-and-evil scale. People are selfish: they act to advance their own interests, and are usually indifferent to somebody else’s, unless these two coincide at a point that allows advancement of both. To cause great suffering requires a great deal of effort, and one must stop pursuing its own selfish goals in order to accomplish this; even more, one most replace ones own current life objective with that of causing misery in order to be effective at doing so: Making somebody truly miserable is costly. To assume that most people would abandon their principal goals in order to cause unhappiness to others is to misunderstand this most fundamental element of human nature: Selfishness. Therefore, it can only be concluded that a minority of people would indeed go great lengths to do so; conversely, it can only be concluded that most people would not go great lengths to cause despair, simply because most people are selfish and would rather pursue their individual ambitions.

However, this is not to say that causing misery can only be achieved with extraordinary commitment; indeed, suffering may be caused as a consequence of an individual’s decision: Picture a young woman that rejects a young man that approached with romantic purposes, or an employee that gained a promotion over his coworker, or picture an unwise man that decided to use heavy drugs and abandon any other endeavor. In all of the previous examples, the origin of misery was the individual decisions of these people: The young man will feel the misery of rejection, the coworker will feel the misery of failure to gain the promotion, and the unwise man will suffer a decrease in his quality of life after abandoning virtually everything for drugs. To refer to any of these instances as “unjust” or “unfair” would be a mistake: A woman has no obligation to accept a man if she does not want, an employee is free to obtain a deserved promotion in spite of his coworker not getting the same, and a man is free to enjoy drugs even if that destroy his own life.

On the whole, misery per-se does not bring happiness to the common folk; on the contrary, misery is often a side-effect of a primary goal. People make decisions, and because there are limited resources in the universe, by choosing to do something they necessarily choose not to do the opposite. The opposite decision might have signified the happiness of another, but even then, this would bring misery to the original person. In other words, misery seems to be a constant in the universe that may not be avoided, and within all its possible causes, it is humanity making use of their free will the leading source of misery in American society, thus one cannot conclude this to be unjust. Finally, suffering might be necessary for improvement: a rejected young man may learn a lesson and adjust his insufficiencies to increase his romantic success, a coworker may observe his failure and decide to work harder or even change careers, and the painful destiny of a drug addict may illustrate to him the impact of his bad decisions. To improve, one must fail, and to fail is to suffer; therefore, misery may have a positive impact on people’s lives.