A War on Suffering

 This is kind of an ironic concept, since war in and of itself usually causes suffering. So declaring a war on suffering is almost as ironic and paradoxical as declaring a war on war. 

However, we live in America, and no one pays attention to any social or cultural ill unless you declare war on it. A relic of our society's militant history and status as a superpower. Hell, most of our idioms, metaphors, and figures of speech have either something to do with sports, sex, or war. 

Prove me wrong.

"War on drugs."

"War on poverty."

"War on crime."

"War on terror."

"War on Covid."

"War on cancer."

We even have the balls to declare war on abstract concepts, like terror, and we spend thousands of lives and billions upon billions of dollars fighting people acting on behalf of ideologies and ideas based on hate and fear and conquest only to constantly be met with failure and have those ideas recycle themselves in new hosts and followers every generation. 

We never have decisive victory because no one knows how to kill an idea. We can wipe out millions of ideological extremists but the ideas always survive and find new "hosts," followers in new disillusioned and embittered prospects whose lives are often devoid of meaning and purpose and they find acceptance and belonging in the bastions of hate and prejudice of our world.

If you really want to fight a war worth fighting, fight a war on suffering. It's almost comedic how ironic such a concept is, but sometimes those ironies and paradoxes have a potency to them that actually ends up making them work and making them useful.

We are a combative species. We fight each other all the time. We fight with our families, we fight with our neighbors, we conquer nations and compete in massive competitions for our entertainment. We don't know how to not be combative with each other, and we suffer greatly because of it.

War causes suffering. War is suffering. Conflict and contention in our relationships causes suffering. The paradox of declaring a "war on suffering" is like declaring war on war itself.  A trick of language similar to FDR's statement "there is nothing to fear but fear itself." 

Almost like the logic in mathematics of when you multiply two negatives and it equals a positive, a "war on suffering" has a similar logical effect. It's like turning two darknesses against each other to create something bright and beautiful.

Suffering is often considered a fundamental condition of our reality. The buddhists considered suffering one of the "three marks of existence."

In Christianity, Jesus's suffering on the cross was the price needed to be paid for the salvation of humanity from sin and death. 

Suffering is considered to be a fact of life. A seemingly inescapable one.

I don't think it has to be.

You can get out of suffering. There is always a way out.

Human beings suffer in different "domains" of our reality. 

We suffer in the social domain, where we may have troubled relationships or social challenges and obstacles.

We suffer in the political domain, where we may be under oppressive political systems and regimes

We suffer in the financial domain, where we may have a hard time paying bills or buying things that make us happy.

We suffer in the romantic domain and family domain.

We suffer in the physical domain. Our bodies get sick, break down, and fall apart

We suffer in the mental domain, where our minds might not see things clearly or our emotions are unmanageable.

We suffer in the spiritual domain, where we deal with our demons and sins or karma, or we may have no faith at all, which is a suffering in itself.

Within the human mind and spirit, buddhism considered the causes of suffering in humanity to come down to three "poisons" or "fires."

Desire/greed/attachment-Sanskrit "Raga"

-wanting things you can't have

-an inability to move on from life events

-obsessions

-addictions

Hatred/aversion-Sanskrit "Dvesha"

    -a lack of conpassion and empathy for those around you

     -A lack of love

     -The desire to destroy

       -malice

Delusion/ignorance Sanskrit "Moha"

     -not seeing things clearly

      -not understanding your circumstances or the reality you are in

        -believing things that aren't true

        -lies

        -mind blindness

The sanskrit words are hard to translate, so a bunch of english words get assigned to each word to try to clarify the concept.

If you put out these three fires, you end your psychological suffering and achieve the buddhist concept of Nirvana. Nirvana itself means "extinguish" or "quench" like putting out a fire.

In a sense, relating to the above mentioned concepts, fighting a war on suffering would be akin to being a firefighter, putting out the fires of suffering in the lives of those around you and your society or humanity as a whole. 

A war on suffering would cover all human ills, vices, and problems in and of itself.

In a sense putting out the fires of suffering in just one person is like quenching the fires of suffering for a whole world.

Hell itself is considered to be a place of fire. Maybe even that fire needs to be put out someday.