I just read this and appreciate your huge caring heart and willingness to ask why and not take just because that’s the way it is for an answer. I have been on a similar journey of curiosity of the design of humans and our place in the cosmos. My question is more, why were we designed with such large flaws in terms of our vulnerability to despicable behavior traits? I personally have found a set of answers in my own contemplations, not comprehensive truths but the emergence of what I’m meant to know, now. I tend to align with a mathematical view of creation even though I’m not that good at math. There’s a resonant vibratory collective dance playing out - far outside duality - and it all is in service of evolution and expansion, which as far as I can tell is the only true purpose of creation
Thank you for this! I have the same question, for sure, and it is quite heartbreaking sometimes. I definitely think the answer exists beyond comprehensive truths — beyond duality — in a paradigm that science is just beginning to brush up against. I love the idea of a "resonant vibratory collective dance" as well; I see it as sort of a web where we're all entangled, and creation is growing in a way that we can't understand, yet it's also holding us in all of our flaws. Who knows how it all works. But I appreciate your willingness to think and wonder about it also!
I love that you explored this topic in such depth and I’ve enjoyed reading these comments. I’ve also explored this topic in deep contemplation and have come back to a similar conclusion: my mind cannot comprehend the truth of the universe because it is not meant to. So trying to figure it all out in the mind will result in going in mental loop after mental loop. I think this is where faith comes in, like you mentioned. There is so much more going on than we realize, so much we don’t understand and can’t comprehend because it is beyond our mental understanding.
Thank you again for writing about this, it was truly a gift to read. The last part resonated deeply in my heart and brought emotions up, in the best way ❤️🙏. It feels like you struck a cord of Truth in your words, one I felt reverberating in my being.
Hi Rhianna, thank you so much for this incredible comment. Especially the last sentence – I could never hope for anything other than that with my writing; it's the greatest praise I could receive. May we all be comforted by trusting that something exists beyond knowing...
your wisdom Eden shines deeply recognizing you don't know the answer. None of us knows. We humans can't see what is the universe since it is too big to grasp. And each of us are an Universe by ourselves. Just consider your experiences, feelings and the myriad of details in you at this very moment. I don't know you, but I will never be able to know all of me, I would need infinite lives. As humans we have very limited perspectives about the world. We concentrate our focus on our limited views, and we wish things were different than they are. Maybe that is a cause of suffering...
Healing from suffering means (etimologicallly) making whole, haelen, hal. Hal is also the root of holy. Realize our wholeness instead of seeing only through our limited, fragmented, incomplete perspective.
Maybe that's what suffering reminds us, that we all are already whole, only our perspective, our gaze is incomplete. it's useless to try to be what we are not. We are all humans with an imperfect and limited view of the world.
And our view, our gaze also belongs to the wholeness of the world, so let's love us as we are now, and let's recognize the suffering in others as our shared suffering, a reminder of what we all are.
Thank you for these beautiful words on wholeness, and how sometimes not-knowing is part of wholeness (after all to know means there is also something unknown..) I do suspect the answer lies in the here-and-now, in its unknowable vastness... Thanks as always for your loving and compassionate support.
I watched the Netflix series Kaos and the gods said something funny in it, something along the lines where they were sending them volcanoes and horrible diseases etc, because it’s only when people are in fear and suffering to they turn to the gods and the gods of Olympus feed off the prayers. God wouldn’t be needed or called upon if there wasn’t suffering is what they were suggesting essentially. I found that very profound for a comedic take on the Olympian gods on a Netflix show
Aww thank you! I think humans from the earliest primordial days have always looked for meaning, and so they created symbols and what later developed into symbolism. As a result we live in a symbolic world. It’s all around us now, what we attach to symbols change over time, and their perception or interpretation varies from the stand point of one’s beliefs.
there's an extremely rich world in each of us, and each of us shapes a world with our unique gaze. To erradicate suffering, one simply would need to look at the world without dividing it into symbols and concepts. But we are humans, and our world is how we look at it. This world would not exist without you Katriena, at least not as it is now...and it would not be so beautiful without you, this is sure
Great topic and discussion! I ask myself this question too about why is suffering necessary. Why are some babies born with terminal illnesses and children die of leukemia. What did they do in their past life to deserve that pain and suffering? Who would choose to suffer? And the idea about learning lessons and karma. So if reincarnation is an actuality, what’s the point of learning lessons in this life to forget it all in the next life, essentially starting with a blank slate. The idea of free will is another funny one that conflicts me all the time, for someone who picked up an astrology book and taught myself it from age 11, it always bothered me how astrology knew so much about who I was, how an astrologer can essentially tell a complete stranger things about themselves because it’s written in their birth chart, in the stars. How does free will exist in that context when it seems birth charts map out a destiny for us. Sure we may have some illusion of making choices in our life (turn left or turn right) , just like the whole premise of an “election” - which just presents to us the options we can choose from not necessarily what we may have nominated as a choice in the first place.
I’m still no where closer to understanding why there is suffering. Sure we can choose to ignore its existence but that doesn’t erase the fact there are people suffering.
This essay is stunning in it's honest questioning, Eden. The way you wrestle with the Problem of Evil feels so honest and alive, and I agree with your conclusion. As someone who has also grappled with suffering and its meaning, and studied Eastern Christian theology, I've come to understand God as apophatic; something beyond comprehension, an infinite presence we can only approach through mystery and negation.
Your exploration reminded me of Carl Jung’s idea that evil arises when we fail to confront our own shadow. He wrote that people tend to "get rid of everything they do not know and do not want to know about themselves by foisting it off on somebody else." * That unwillingness to face our inner darkness perpetuates suffering, both within us and in the world.
And yet, like you, I’ve found a strange, tragic beauty in all of this. Suffering, as unbearable as it can be, seems to hold the capacity to walk us through both darkness and light. It opens us to the divine in ways we cannot fully understand, to ways that break us and heal us simultaneously.
Thank you for writing this. It feels like a portal to something truer than words.
* Full quote from my zettelkasten: "It is in the nature of political bodies always to see the evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything he does not know and does not want to know about himself by foisting it off on somebody else." ~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 72
Hi Lane, thank you so much for these kind and wise observations. I do think suffering does tend to bring us closer to the divine, which seems like a huge price to pay for closeness to divinity, but at the same time clearly there is something at work far beyond what we can understand — something that can only be felt and trusted, not entirely comprehended. I definitely think of Jung's observations a lot, and I think faith and spirituality do always become stronger when we aren't ignoring suffering, as that's ignoring a huge part of our existence and reality. I think we can also choose to accept that God or whatever created us includes the suffering and I think that for whatever reason, life gets easier when we reach this acceptance. Perhaps some great meaning will be unveiled eventually, but for now, I'm just glad to get to write about it... and to have these words read and met with such compassionate and insightful feedback!
I just read this and appreciate your huge caring heart and willingness to ask why and not take just because that’s the way it is for an answer. I have been on a similar journey of curiosity of the design of humans and our place in the cosmos. My question is more, why were we designed with such large flaws in terms of our vulnerability to despicable behavior traits? I personally have found a set of answers in my own contemplations, not comprehensive truths but the emergence of what I’m meant to know, now. I tend to align with a mathematical view of creation even though I’m not that good at math. There’s a resonant vibratory collective dance playing out - far outside duality - and it all is in service of evolution and expansion, which as far as I can tell is the only true purpose of creation
Thank you for this! I have the same question, for sure, and it is quite heartbreaking sometimes. I definitely think the answer exists beyond comprehensive truths — beyond duality — in a paradigm that science is just beginning to brush up against. I love the idea of a "resonant vibratory collective dance" as well; I see it as sort of a web where we're all entangled, and creation is growing in a way that we can't understand, yet it's also holding us in all of our flaws. Who knows how it all works. But I appreciate your willingness to think and wonder about it also!
I love that you explored this topic in such depth and I’ve enjoyed reading these comments. I’ve also explored this topic in deep contemplation and have come back to a similar conclusion: my mind cannot comprehend the truth of the universe because it is not meant to. So trying to figure it all out in the mind will result in going in mental loop after mental loop. I think this is where faith comes in, like you mentioned. There is so much more going on than we realize, so much we don’t understand and can’t comprehend because it is beyond our mental understanding.
Thank you again for writing about this, it was truly a gift to read. The last part resonated deeply in my heart and brought emotions up, in the best way ❤️🙏. It feels like you struck a cord of Truth in your words, one I felt reverberating in my being.
Hi Rhianna, thank you so much for this incredible comment. Especially the last sentence – I could never hope for anything other than that with my writing; it's the greatest praise I could receive. May we all be comforted by trusting that something exists beyond knowing...
your wisdom Eden shines deeply recognizing you don't know the answer. None of us knows. We humans can't see what is the universe since it is too big to grasp. And each of us are an Universe by ourselves. Just consider your experiences, feelings and the myriad of details in you at this very moment. I don't know you, but I will never be able to know all of me, I would need infinite lives. As humans we have very limited perspectives about the world. We concentrate our focus on our limited views, and we wish things were different than they are. Maybe that is a cause of suffering...
Healing from suffering means (etimologicallly) making whole, haelen, hal. Hal is also the root of holy. Realize our wholeness instead of seeing only through our limited, fragmented, incomplete perspective.
Maybe that's what suffering reminds us, that we all are already whole, only our perspective, our gaze is incomplete. it's useless to try to be what we are not. We are all humans with an imperfect and limited view of the world.
And our view, our gaze also belongs to the wholeness of the world, so let's love us as we are now, and let's recognize the suffering in others as our shared suffering, a reminder of what we all are.
Humans.
Thank you for these beautiful words on wholeness, and how sometimes not-knowing is part of wholeness (after all to know means there is also something unknown..) I do suspect the answer lies in the here-and-now, in its unknowable vastness... Thanks as always for your loving and compassionate support.
I watched the Netflix series Kaos and the gods said something funny in it, something along the lines where they were sending them volcanoes and horrible diseases etc, because it’s only when people are in fear and suffering to they turn to the gods and the gods of Olympus feed off the prayers. God wouldn’t be needed or called upon if there wasn’t suffering is what they were suggesting essentially. I found that very profound for a comedic take on the Olympian gods on a Netflix show
yes! profound insights can be found everywhere.. in Netflix...in a sunrise... in a frog 🐸...in a traffic jam....even in substack! 😊
The insights are everywhere but only a curious gaze like yours can see them ✨
Aww thank you! I think humans from the earliest primordial days have always looked for meaning, and so they created symbols and what later developed into symbolism. As a result we live in a symbolic world. It’s all around us now, what we attach to symbols change over time, and their perception or interpretation varies from the stand point of one’s beliefs.
curious and wise, very wise 🙏✨
there's an extremely rich world in each of us, and each of us shapes a world with our unique gaze. To erradicate suffering, one simply would need to look at the world without dividing it into symbols and concepts. But we are humans, and our world is how we look at it. This world would not exist without you Katriena, at least not as it is now...and it would not be so beautiful without you, this is sure
Great topic and discussion! I ask myself this question too about why is suffering necessary. Why are some babies born with terminal illnesses and children die of leukemia. What did they do in their past life to deserve that pain and suffering? Who would choose to suffer? And the idea about learning lessons and karma. So if reincarnation is an actuality, what’s the point of learning lessons in this life to forget it all in the next life, essentially starting with a blank slate. The idea of free will is another funny one that conflicts me all the time, for someone who picked up an astrology book and taught myself it from age 11, it always bothered me how astrology knew so much about who I was, how an astrologer can essentially tell a complete stranger things about themselves because it’s written in their birth chart, in the stars. How does free will exist in that context when it seems birth charts map out a destiny for us. Sure we may have some illusion of making choices in our life (turn left or turn right) , just like the whole premise of an “election” - which just presents to us the options we can choose from not necessarily what we may have nominated as a choice in the first place.
I’m still no where closer to understanding why there is suffering. Sure we can choose to ignore its existence but that doesn’t erase the fact there are people suffering.
This essay is stunning in it's honest questioning, Eden. The way you wrestle with the Problem of Evil feels so honest and alive, and I agree with your conclusion. As someone who has also grappled with suffering and its meaning, and studied Eastern Christian theology, I've come to understand God as apophatic; something beyond comprehension, an infinite presence we can only approach through mystery and negation.
Your exploration reminded me of Carl Jung’s idea that evil arises when we fail to confront our own shadow. He wrote that people tend to "get rid of everything they do not know and do not want to know about themselves by foisting it off on somebody else." * That unwillingness to face our inner darkness perpetuates suffering, both within us and in the world.
And yet, like you, I’ve found a strange, tragic beauty in all of this. Suffering, as unbearable as it can be, seems to hold the capacity to walk us through both darkness and light. It opens us to the divine in ways we cannot fully understand, to ways that break us and heal us simultaneously.
Thank you for writing this. It feels like a portal to something truer than words.
* Full quote from my zettelkasten: "It is in the nature of political bodies always to see the evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything he does not know and does not want to know about himself by foisting it off on somebody else." ~Carl Jung; The Undiscovered Self; Page 72
Hi Lane, thank you so much for these kind and wise observations. I do think suffering does tend to bring us closer to the divine, which seems like a huge price to pay for closeness to divinity, but at the same time clearly there is something at work far beyond what we can understand — something that can only be felt and trusted, not entirely comprehended. I definitely think of Jung's observations a lot, and I think faith and spirituality do always become stronger when we aren't ignoring suffering, as that's ignoring a huge part of our existence and reality. I think we can also choose to accept that God or whatever created us includes the suffering and I think that for whatever reason, life gets easier when we reach this acceptance. Perhaps some great meaning will be unveiled eventually, but for now, I'm just glad to get to write about it... and to have these words read and met with such compassionate and insightful feedback!