The Meaning of Suffering - by Becca J.H. - startling ground

Suffering is the opposite of meaning. It has no “why.” When you are in a suffering-state, there is no reason or purpose to be found. It’s only by moving away from suffering that the experience can be interpreted and redeemed. A near-death experience allows you to appreciate life, but only if you don’t die. Pain eliminates language. At its most extreme, it results in an animalistic scream, an expression of utter unintelligibility. The only way to restore language is to move out of the pain-state. In a study on the loss of identity suffered by people with debilitating chronic illness, Kathy Charmaz wrote that those who experienced lengthy episodes of illness could integrate their sickness into their process of self-discovery and reintegration with the world. Their perilous journey into the kingdom of the ill (as Sontag called it) “heightened their consciousness of who they were and who they wished to become.” But this phenomenon was only found in those who had recovered. For those still

saved by

• Janet Guo
• Celeste Li