On Suffering
The concept of suffering has been on my mind recently. It is lent, after all, one of the few Christian traditions I regularly observe, (as I explained to a colleague recently, “I’m not particularly religious, but I love suffering) marking the period of time Jesus Christ wandered through the desert. As a child I would rebuke complainers by invoking this tradition. “Jesus went for forty days in the wilderness without food or water: suck it up.”
When I was about 13 I decided to go seeking a new spiritual path for myself. Inspired by attending my best friend’s Bar Mitzvah, I had concluded that the Episcopalian Christianity of my childhood simply wasn’t esoteric or exotic enough for my tastes. After reading about the various world religions, I ended up attending a Buddhist temple regularly for a few years. It was a Japanese sect, which dovetailed perfectly with the Japanese Immersion Program I was a part of at school, and the priests and disciples were, like me, white people who had decided to look to parts further east for spiritual wisdom and meaning. It seemed that I had landed in the right place.
The first noble truth in Buddhism, dukkha, is often translated (clumsily) as “life is suffering.” Young Max ate this idea up with a voracious appetite. Here was a philosophy and religious practice that took the self-denialism of Lent and the noble endurance of hardship demonstrated by Christ and made it its whole thing. Or so was my understanding at the time
The truth of course is that Buddhism, like Christianity or any religion, consists of a vastly complicated history and diverse sects and movements that interpret the life and teachings of Siddhartha Gautama Buddha in their own ways. But central to them all is the idea that suffering is inevitable, and only by embracing the pain of existence are we able to transcend it and attain liberation.
So what happens when we start to live in a way that rejects suffering altogether?
Recently I read this interview with Michael Pollan in the guardian. He describes a sort of siege warfare being waged against the very thing that makes us human: our consciousness. It’s a remarkable interview and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety. But the thought that arose in my mind was this: have we reached the point in history where a life without discomfort has become plausible?
The ostensible goals of the tech industry have always been to make life easier. Facebook made it “easier” to keep in touch with friends from college; AirBnB made it “easier” to travel and book a place to stay; Uber and Lyft made it “easier” to get a taxi, and so on. As these companies sunk their claws deeper and deeper into the activities of our daily life we quickly forgot what minor inconveniences felt like. The old cliche about millennials being too afraid to ask for ketchup at a restaurant illustrates this perfectly. How could a person feel comfortable asking for ketchup when all they’ve had to do to get it in the past was select it from a drop down menu and pay a fifty-cent add on fee?
For many of us, and I fear for generations to come, this has dire implications. We are already seeing the cultural and societal impact of a generation whose only access to romantic love is through an app: a study from two years ago found that almost half of young men ages 18-25 had never asked a girl out on a date in person. If you’ve ever used the apps yourself (and God knows I have) you’ll know that it’s a desperately lonely experience. Swiping through hundreds of profiles hoping to make a connection knowing that the person on the other end of your message is likely being bombarded with dozens of similar solicitations. The apps create a sense of disposability, of romance as a kind of infinitely renewable resource. If it doesn’t work out you can always just go ghost and cast your rod back out into the digital sea of potential partners.
It’s a technology that has further alienated and radicalized a population of young men who are already struggling with how to view themselves. The incel culture online has had such a profound impact on culture that we often find ourselves using their vocabulary without even thinking about it. “Redpilled” or “looksmaxxing” might be words that don’t mean anything to your parents (hi mom and dad) but even mainstream content creators use “-pilled” or “-maxxing” in a jokey way that normalizes the highly misogynistic and insular communities they come from.
And those communities exist because they are seeking to avoid suffering. They are seeking to avoid the suffering that comes with being rejected by a potential romantic partner.
And then of course we have the endless deluge of distractions available to us that offer escape from our loneliness: Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, Netflix, Twitch, Roblox, Twitt-I mean “X.” Forget for a moment about the infinity of pornography available on the internet, social media offers just as bottomless of an abyss for people to lose themselves in. It’s an ecosystem based on the parasocial, where being a fan and being someone’s friend almost feel like the same thing. When a creator responds to your comment it almost feels like a real conversation. That itch, that burning desire to be seen, to be in community, is scratched for just a split second.
But then you scroll and once again you’re seeking the next dopamine hit, the next like, the next bit of engagement.
As Michael Pollan points out in the Guardian interview 72% of teenagers are turning to AI for companionship. This should trouble everyone.
When I was a kid I had my fair share of conflict with my friends, as you can probably surmise from my aforementioned propensity to invoke the suffering of Jesus Christ when people complained about things. But conflict is a fundamentally necessary experience of childhood. When I was in the wrong I had to learn to apologize and acknowledge that what I had said or done was hurtful, even if I hadn’t meant it that way. Conversely when my friends wronged me I had to learn to be graceful and accept their apology and try to understand why they did what they did.
With AI this all disappears.
AI companionship, if one can even call it that, is devoid of the friction present in any healthy, human relationship. Much has been written about the sycophancy problem in Large Language Models and I don’t need to add to it here, but suffice it to say that when “yes” is the only answer you get used to hearing, a sudden “no” in real life doesn’t just feel like a rejection, but a full on assault.
The ability to tolerate discomfort or awkwardness that we develop through hearing “no” throughout our life is really really important. Without it we become cocooned in a world of our own self indulgence, Without struggle, without suffering we lose the ability to work through problems with ourselves and each other. What is left for us then? A Wall-E sort of existence where despite the fact that our physical needs are met nothing seems to matter or excite us anymore?
Life without friction is impossible. (What is sex after all, but friction?) But I fear that as everything becomes faster and more convenient, it also becomes less meaningful, less human. We don’t need to indulge in suffering, or wallow in it, but maybe it’s time to reevaluate our priorities and ask ourselves, what is worth struggling for?