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The discipline of suffering, of great suffering. Do you not know that only this discipline

has created all enhancements of man so far? Suffering is inevitable. It is an essential component of the human condition and the sources of suffering are many.

Some have gone as far as to suggest that it is suffering and not its opposites of joy and

happiness that is the more common experience.

Men are wretched by necessity and determined to believe themselves wretched by accident,

wrote the philosopher and poet, Jacomo Leopardi. So given that we will suffer, the important

question is, how will we suffer? Will we let our suffering destroy us and drive us into a pit

of despair? Or will our suffering lift us to the heights into a pit of despair, or will our suffering lift us

to the heights of a fulfilling life? In this video, we examine the value that lies latent

in the experience of suffering, and make the argument that most people approach suffering

in a way that is antithetical to life. All good in a man for which he is praised or loved, wrote Herman Hesse, is merely good suffering,

the right kind, the living kind of suffering, a suffering to the full.

From suffering springs strength, from suffering springs health.

At first a glance, suffering appears to be one of life's evils. It tends to

arise with the misfortunes of illness, injury, failure, loss, or rejection. It is a painful

experience consisting of an onslaught of negative emotions, and it tends to isolate us from friends and

family. What value can there be to an

experience which is associated with all these negatives? What is it about suffering that could lead

Nietzsche to write that? It almost determines the order of rank how profoundly human beings

can suffer. Profound suffering makes noble.

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