Do people who live in misery gain a certain kind of wisdom?

[noname223]

I think this assumption is widespread. At least Slavoj Zizek said it. He added that this assumption is wrong. People who live in an absolute misery only get bitter, resentful and often lonely.
I am not sure about it. Chester Bennington said his depression made him more empathic to other people. I am not sure. Some people in this forum (partly also me) have come to the conclusion that life is unfair and can be very brutal. Is this some sort of truth we have obtained? Or is this only subjective and we see this trough our lense because we are at the bottom of life? Maybe life is precious and can be beautiful for like 90% of people. Maybe our suffering is negligible for the existing of humankind. (Thb I do not belive that. These are only hypothesis. If this hypothesis was true it would be important to make suicide way easier e.g. through euthanasia.)
I think I gained some sort of wisdom. I know how suffering feels like. It made me more grown-up, added philosphical nihilism/existentialism. Partly it makes you humble. However at least for me it is true that I become quite bitter and resentful. What do you think about it?

 

[FuneralCry]

I believe so. I think the objective truth is that life is suffering, there is no limit as to how horrible things can get. Of course some suffer a lot more than others as everything is determined by luck and chance. People who believe that life is anything positive are clearly delusional. However many of them are lucky enough to have not suffered enough so they are able to be in a position where they are blind to the true horrors of life. In my opinion wanting ctb is perfectly rational when you realise how pointless life really is.

 

[Rational man]

. Chester Bennington said his depression made him more empathic to other people

i can relate to this. I think when we suffer from illness and the pain attached to disease, we can identify ourselves in other people who suffer too. Some people sound off the usual soundbites like ' be positive ', ' it will be okay ' but i say to myself that they have no idea what its like. They'll know if they were afflicted. But dont you just know the parrot in the room.

 

[Snake of Eden]

Wisdom is seeing things for what they are. So yes

 

[UpandDownPrincess]

No. People who wish to learn from the world around them gain perspective.

Some people in misery are narrow-minded assholes, just like there are narrow-minded assholes in every walk of life.

It is a fallacy to believe that everyone who has suffered has learned anything.

 

[Fadeawaaaay]

I would rather trade this unpleasant wisdom for ignorant bliss…

 

[chocolatebar]

No. People who wish to learn from the world around them gain perspective.

Some people in misery are narrow-minded assholes, just like there are narrow-minded assholes in every walk of life.

It is a fallacy to believe that everyone who has suffered has learned anything.

I agree. I see people suffering all around me and they will keep telling about how life is so great. But maybe @noname223 was talking about a different kind of suffering.

 

[Samsara]

My suffering has definitely made me more empathic to people. Insight gained from suffering is truly a double-edged sword, because although you can use this empathy to help others, you cannot use it to help yourself.

 

[Bleak]

I think wisdom should allow one to flourish and be happy, or at the very least attain some tranquility. Perhaps wisdom can be gained as a response to misery but I don't think it's a necessary consequence of it. But I am a total loser and a fool so I don't know why anyone should listen to my opinion of what wisdom is.

 

[Someone123]

I have learned some things during this last depression that if I knew them 20 or 30 years ago would have changd my life so much for the better, but this learning is too late. I don't know if it's wisdom, the key things are how to priotize life in ways that most of the people I know knew many years ago- I can see this from the results. But I have learned some key things, but too late to really make them work- unless IK can go back in time.

 

[...]

I think if you were to manage the misery to a point where you could recover to a certain level of happiness then yes. But whilst in the deep misery, no.

 

[eryu]

They can but it isn't a given. It depends on their personality, the types of suffering, how bad the suffering is.
I would say I may have gained some wisdom from my suffering much earlier.
Now, years later, the stress has been so much and the pain so bad and unrelenting - I have only shreds left of the wisdom I believed I'd developed over a decade earlier. And I do not believe I really continued to develop and gain anything of significance from the much worse pain of the last few years.
In many ways I have less empathy now. I am not able to care about people like I used to and I feel somewhat fake when I go through the motions of caring for the ones who are still in my life.
Psych drugs played a very big role in this though.

 

[BeansOfRequirement]

Depends on the misery and, more importantly, on the person. Most people won't gain any wisdom from higher education, much less by crying in a corner.

If you are predisposed to thinking rather than doing, and low in instinct/bias/outsourcing of thought, then I think misery would be far more useful as a teacher than happiness. Misery is tougher to deal with, obviously, so your brain is lifting heavy weights.

If we're talking about your average neurotypical, then I think a happy environment would be best for their "development".

 

[Fakereality]

This whole world is big wide can of misery not every worm who lurks beneath the bottom gains some sort of wisdom infact most start losing the little very little they ever had, though there are flowers which do come out of soil made of suffering and pain but at a certain point you start wondering whether a price of such wisdom is ever worth it?.

 

[ChaseIt]

I try to tell myself 'the suffering is temporary but the wisdom gained is permanent'

 

[motel rooms]

No, not necessarily.

 

[CFLoser]

No, if anything misery makes you stupider. Living in misery is inherently mentally and physically destructive. You don't come out on the other side super powered up, thats fucking ridiculous.

 

[eternalmelancholy]

No that is just coping. There is no deeper meaning behind suffering.

 

[Someone123]

No that is just coping. There is no deeper meaning behind suffering.

There is no deeper meaning, I agree, but sometimes a person can get insights about what went wrong when things really go wrong- in some cases, like in my life, certain key insights are many years too late.

 

[Insomniac]

they are standing here right in the middle of a fire that'd burn you yet they're still alive and living.

the world is full of people who are living my worse nightmares. and my life is the worst nightmare of some people I guess.

 

[drune11]

It depends on the person and circumstances. When I first read the title I was going to say that my empathy has skyrocketed over the past few years and I saw you said that Chester Bennington experienced something similar.

I think misery can bring helpful insights when you see things much more clearly, but it's a thin line and it can quickly swing into perceiving things unrealistically is a pessimistic way too, as opposed to the normal people that tend to be too optimistic.

At some point, if there is no healing, eventually I think the brain rot leads to delusions, not wisdom.

 

[Ihadagoodlife]

Depend tbh. I think a mix of curiosity, good introspection ability and emotional intelligence is what really make someone the perfect emphat and give you that wisdom but ye going through suffering always helps understand others who go through it better.

Some peoples are also naturally better at feeling other emotions positive ones and negative ones so they they can understand suffering really well without having to question other to do it.

I was a bit bitter and resentful too at some point but now idc i just want it to end

 

[PeacefulTonic]

Ever since my life did a complete 180, I feel my brain slowly rotting. Definitely no wisdom gained here

 

[Zzzzz]

It's a fact that life is unfair in a universal sense. There are so many examples but The fact that children get cancer is proof enough that life isn't fair. And 1 in every 6 children get abused or neglected, mostly by their parents. Fairness requires a level playing field. It's obvious that life is unfair and often straight up predatory in it's nature. People believe in delusions to cope with unpleasant truths. Life is objectively bad in a moral sense, if people agree that abuse is wrong. Abuse is inevitable in this world.

 

[171S]

Pleasure is just the temporary reduction of ongoing suffering. Reduction of suffering or seeking pleasure is just an attempt to try to escape the reality that life is for the most part painful, most people need to sacrifice and make efforts just to stay alive, some less than others but still true for everyone. Sometimes the body suffers more, sometimes the mind suffers more, any potential way to experience existence is a potential source for pain.

I learned this truth from a YT video on Schopenhauer What If The World is Actually a Prison? | The Philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer

 

[Ness]

That's an interesting thought. I think that there are many kinds of wisdom and that some of it is empathy, a lot of us learn more because of it. I know I certainly have a lot of empathy, but for me that's about all I got out of it and most of the time I don't acknowledge that I've learned something from all the trauma. I just feel stupid all the time.

 

[Fadeawaaaay]

The wisdom to realize that the world is actually quite a dangerous place and survival is not a given… That you and I are not immune from the most horrible misery's imaginable… I guess that's a form of wisdom… It's unfortunate when you learn these things too late

 

[healthrecovery]

Being in a loving enviroment gives wisdom
Slavoj Zizek is right misery only makes you bitter

 

[ddd1234]

I Have loving family who tries to help me and it breaks my heart because there is no help for me. They are searching internet for new treatments while I am looking for suicide methods. I am awful person now, I hate the person I became. I used to be compassionate and kind. Now I am shit.

 

[Fadeawaaaay]

Being in a loving enviroment gives wisdom
Slavoj Zizek is right misery only makes you bitter

Absolutely. Hardship does not build character. It ruins it. At least in my case.

Friends and family who are trying to help me right now clearly think this is some Phase- They are kindly offering support and encouraging words.
They think that I will heal and eventually go back to being relatively charming, generous, and friendly.
But that's not going to happen. An ugly side of me has emerged and it's not going away.
Which is why this needs to stop as soon as possible. There's really no point in dragging it out.

I Have loving family who tries to help me and it breaks my heart because there is no help for me. They are searching internet for new treatments while I am looking for suicide methods. I am awful person now, I hate the person I became. I used to be compassionate and kind. Now I am shit.

I was writing these exact words just now. It's frustrating because we know that life is beautiful. There are all these amazing experiences that could've been our future. There's all these people who want to help us. We know exactly who we want to be. But we also know it's impossible. That is a tragedy.