7-23-2010 The Suffer-for-Joy Principle

Today, after a long period of inactivity, I exercised and practiced the organ. Those are the two activities that get my brain working. So now, late in the evening, my brain is jumping. What I write here should be brilliant. It will also be subtle in its brilliance--written on two or more levels simultaneously. Some of my duller readers won't pick up on the brilliance and will think it ordinary. Only those who are themselves quite cleaver will appreciate the gems herein.


Lorri got her hair permed today and it worked well. Now she'll be able to swim in Hawaii without having to worry much about her hair. I started feeling a little of the restless feeling in my legs so I took about 22 oz. of Gatorade which worked well. However I didn't pee after drinking it so I was more dehydrated that I knew. The exercise might have contributed to drying me out. There have been many times when I felt off-center and took Gatorade or water and felt much better. I need to remember to do that more often. The other thing that can help me feel better is yogurt. When I take just one cup per day it makes me feel better. Since that works well it is amazing that I don't remember it more often.

This line of thought leads me to an unfortunate principle in the world. It is the notion that when problems are avoided by taking measures, sometimes simple measures, sometimes difficult measures-- a person gets little or no credit for preventing the problem. If a problem happens and a person steps in and fixes it he does get credit for it. I first became aware of this phenomenon when people were explaining why god put suffering in the world. They would explain that we could not know happiness unless we had unhappiness with which to contrast it. Only when we suffered pain, or loss or failure could we really appreciate the opposite state. And that is true, at least to some extent. Bad things do make us appreciate good things more. Let's call this principle the suffer-for-joy principle. But when people argue that god had to put bad in the world so that we could appreciate good they forget that god is supposed to have been an omnipotent creator. She made the world and all the rules or laws--or principles-- by which the world operates. He could just as easily have made people so that we were thrilled with good things even there were no bad things for contrast. Instead we are forced to suffer with bad things in order appreciate the good. If there were a god and she were kind, there would be no suffering. I won't even start to deal with the old cop-out of "we just don't understand God's plan and if we did it would all make sense". Such bullshit. We are the smartest critters in the universe--so far as we know-- and we’re pretty smart when we are at our best. If we can conceive of a world without the need for a suffer-for-joy principle why couldn’t an all knowing god?

Anyway, since I encountered that adolescent sophism I have always rebelled against the suffer-for-joy principle. But I have taken it beyond that and rebelled at the idea of taking preventative action to avoid problems. This is not so much suffer-for-joy as work-to-avoid-problems. I know, I know, my approach is not a smart way to live. A concrete example is that I like to rescue plants that are on death's door--shriveled and brown. I take painstaking care of them and before long they are thriving. It makes me feel as though I've accomplished something. But then I gradually forget to water them and they start a slow downhill decline. It ends up as a vicious cycle. I could avoid that cycle with consistent watering and fertilizing, but for some perverse reason I don't enjoy that so much. For one thing, I figure that much effort and energy can be taken to proactively avoid problems. But if the effort is successful you never know if you really needed to take so much trouble.