Suffering

There are few things in this life that are universal, but suffering is built into the human experience. It is felt by everyone on some level. We all age, lose loved ones, and we all must wrestle with – and eventually come to terms with – our own mortality. We understand suffering and we need to do better at seeing and understanding the suffering of our fellow citizens. Not just the suffering of those in our immediate circle or those that look like us, but more importantly those that don’t share our skin color, zip code, nation, or beliefs. Our shared sense of suffering should unite us. It should present to us a common ground to start erecting a structure of understanding and compassion.

Right now in your neighborhood people are suffering. It doesn’t matter where you live. Even in the most affluent neighborhoods – and most assuredly in the poorest neighborhoods – there are people suffering unnecessarily.  We have the capacity to bring about change in America. ‘There is nothing that we can’t accomplish,’ is something we’ve been hearing for a long time by politicians and people in positions of power in America. I’m kind of tired of hearing it. I’m tired of hearing it because we have people suffering in such profound, diverse, and avoidable ways, and we don’t seem overly interested in trying to really do anything about it on a political level.

Limiting or possibly eliminating some types of suffering is within our reach if we only commit to it.  Doing this doesn’t rely solely on charity. While contributing to an organization that is involved with a cause you believe in is definitely worthwhile, one can make a difference with the types of policies they support, products they buy, and a general compassion for our fellow Americans. 

Compassion, like nuance, will be a word I use frequently in my writing. It is the underlying solution to almost all of our collective problems. A good friend of mine sent me a text after reading the post about the Capitol mob. He said that a little empathy and compassion would go a very long way for us. I’m not sure how he leans politically, but that’s kind of the point – it shouldn’t matter. We should find compassion for all of our fellow Americans, no matter what their political or ideological bend.

The opposite of compassion in my mind is hate. Hate is easy. One needn’t explore their emotions deeper or be vulnerable to the possibility of being wrong. One needs only to feel the emotion of anger or fear and settle into hate. The problem is that hate will consume you and destroy your humanity and our collective humanity. You will assuredly live a less meaningful and less happy life if you spend it hating other people. Anger is just an emotion. There is nothing wrong with it alone, but it should trigger a pause and be reflected on. It shouldn’t be immediately hardened into hate.

American politics are ugly. They always have been and now more than ever it seems the parties have hijacked our most basic emotions to turn on our hate. Truth is we don’t hate one another, and very few people are deliberately trying to undermine the United States. Everyone truly believes that what they are doing is right and in the best interest of the country. I believe those that are on the extreme Right and extreme Left are operating on a premise of fear and anger that has led them to their current states of hatred. Being able to tap into those emotions and stir that hatred stems from suffering.

Suffering opens us up to extreme positions. When we suffer we look for ways to stop suffering. We are more susceptible to extreme ideas and our emotions are more easily triggered when we are trying to escape the realm of suffering. Scapegoats of the ‘other’ can be blamed by bad actors trying to superficially ease our suffering. When we have someone to blame for the way we feel then we can project that anger outwardly. Again, this is easy because we aren’t actually doing anything other than following the logic of a person or organization that wishes to get something from us – money, power, influence, elected, etc.

Compassion has no place for these bad actors. Compassion and nuanced understanding is the antidote to their poison. But compassion is difficult. It requires self-realization and self-criticism. It presents the possibility of having to admit you are wrong or were at fault for some transgression.  You may have to reassign some of your suffering to your own behavior. You may have to change your politics. You may have to reframe the way you see humanity in general.

With compassion we must try to understand the whole of the person. We cannot cherry-pick aspects of their character and judge them based solely on that. So a person that was raised in a racist family and was surrounded only by people that hold white supremacy beliefs has as much of a chance of becoming a proponent of equality as someone raised in a house where equality was valued has of becoming a racist. This isn’t to let that belief of racist superiority off the hook, but a person that is predisposed to hate will not have their mind changed without compassion.

White superiority and racism is undeniable horrible and an awful stain on the tapestry of our country. We can’t change the mindset of everyone that holds those beliefs, but we can chip away at it using compassion. Unfortunately despite our best efforts we will likely not rid the world of racism anytime soon. Though it can be diminished to a point where many people’s lives will be improved and much suffering will be eased. That isn’t just the improvement of the lives of the people that would have been persecuted against by racists, but the reformed racist would also lead a more fulfilling and rich life.

Poverty is a major, if not THE major, cause of suffering in our country. With poverty comes the propensity for addiction, hunger, malnutrition, undiagnosed health and mental health issues, high dropout rates, and violence. These things lead to prison, early death, and broken families. It is hard for a child from such a situation to find stable ground to build a life that doesn’t perpetuate a desperate and hopeless cycle. It’s not to say that success isn’t possible, but the likelihood is fairly slim. It’s hard to focus on homework when you haven’t eaten or don’t have a regular place to sleep.

It is difficult to find legislative solutions to racism – not impossible but difficult. Poverty is much easier to address from a legislative perspective, and almost all issues of inequality in America are primarily economic in nature. So a few adjustments to our tactics on addressing poverty would also address some of the core systemic issues commonly blamed on racism.  What’s more is that these are not simple handouts or an increase in the existing paternalistic welfare system. This is a reallocation of resources that ultimately saves money. Instead of spending seven dollars in twenty years to address the problems we’ve created today we can spend a dollar now and prevent the problems from even occurring.

Not only does that provide reason for a fiscal conservative to consider such legislation, but think of what this would do for humanity. We are putting people first. We are telling a generation that we care enough about them to give them the tools they need for a chance at success. Psychologically that would provide some hope to the hopeless. It would present a path not littered with avoidable obstacles. People would still need to walk that path, and the path to success is difficult even with optimal conditions, but this would give people a better chance at success.

Think of the suffering that would be alleviated or averted entirely by shifting funds away from the criminal justice system and into early childhood development and education. The money saved by creating a functioning healthcare system that not only provides care to all for existing ailments, but puts an equal emphasis on a healthy lifestyle. Imagine the increase in life quality for all of society if we put an emphasis on family planning and had easier access to contraception. This would allow people to have more control of their futures and perhaps break the cycle of poverty. Think of the lives saved and human potential regained if we ended the ‘War on Drugs’, and we started giving people the resources they needed to overcome addiction instead of treating them like criminals.

There will always be people that won’t succeed, even with every safety net and opportunity to do so, but that is no reason to not at least consider the above possibilities for our future. The suffering of your rich neighbor is from an inherited mental illness that she is afraid to speak of because mental health is still largely taboo in our country. The ‘junkie’ on the street used to be a hardworking provider until he was hurt on the job and was over-prescribed opioids. The stressed young woman at the grocery checkout paying with food stamps and holding a screaming baby made a bad decision one night and now has to spend the rest of her life trying to get by. The guy in the big truck with the Confederate Flag flying proudly and blowing black smoke was born into that lifestyle.

We don’t know as much as we think we do. We should try to be open to that idea and take the first step of compassion towards solutions. What we don’t address today with compassion and nuanced understanding we end up paying for later. Those that suffer tend to spread that suffering to others. The kids of that ‘junkie’ on the street will suffer because they won’t grow up with the confidence bestowed by a devout and present father. The children of your neighbor will inherit the mental disorder and mimic the family approach of ignoring or hiding it so that it’ll have the same impact on the next generation. The cycle continues unless we have the will to stop it and the compassion to address it on a human level.

We as a country have done many great things and we’ve been taught – or propagandized – that in America anything is possible. I happen to believe that, but not in the way that most others do. I don’t believe in the idea that anyone can become anything. I think that is a nice story that at times proves true, but it is not enough to correct for the nature of an inequitable society. We are all limited or advantaged by our birth circumstances. We can be born with great advantage or great disadvantage, and those that are born with advantage have a responsibility to be compassionate to those that aren’t .

No one is ‘better’ than anyone else. That is the antithesis of compassion. Compassion in America should be understanding that we are striving towards a country that has liberty for all. Some people are more apt to have that liberty by no real virtue of their own, and some are denied that liberty by no fault of their own. Personal responsibility is the final step to all this, but too often we confuse personal responsibility as being the only step towards that liberty.

I believe that systemic changes need to be made to limit suffering for the most vulnerable of our fellow American citizens. I do believe in the ability of America to do anything, and in this case I believe that we have an obligation to those vulnerable citizens to ensure that they aren’t doomed to suffer due to losing the birth lottery. This can be done by breaking the paradigm of meritocracy and focusing on reforms in child care, education, addiction treatment, mental health treatment, healthcare, and the criminal justice and prison systems – to name only a few. None of this is possible unless we exercise compassion for our fellow citizens, and are open to new ideas and methods. Let’s try to let compassion lead the way to political reform.

Thanks for reading.

**There are already a number of examples of compassionate cures to racism currently going on in our country. Christian Picciolini is a reformed skinhead that has written books about his life as a white supremacist and his escape from that group. He has dedicated his life to helping other people understand racism and escape extremist groups. Daryl Davis is a black man that has spent decades reforming KKK members through education.   The organization Life After Hate is an organization that helps people navigate their way out of extremists groups.  These are but only a few examples, but explore them further should you find the time and the cause worthy to you.

**For a great in-depth look at the truth about poverty in America I recommend the book Tightrope by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn. It is rich not only in data but in personal stories of families that have been ravaged by poverty. It also provides actionable steps to alleviating many of those issues.