{"id":58319,"date":"2015-05-25T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=58319"},"modified":"2015-05-17T17:04:41","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T16:04:41","slug":"how-to-make-use-of-our-suffering-simone-weil-on-ameliorating-our-experience-of-pain-hunger-fatigue-and-all-that-makes-the-soul-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/05\/how-to-make-use-of-our-suffering-simone-weil-on-ameliorating-our-experience-of-pain-hunger-fatigue-and-all-that-makes-the-soul-cry\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Use of Our Suffering: Simone Weil on Ameliorating Our Experience of Pain, Hunger, Fatigue, and All That Makes the Soul Cry"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTo make use \u2026 of the sufferings that chance inflicts upon us is better than inflicting discipline upon oneself.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"simoneweil_notebooks<\/a>Long before scientists had empirical evidence of the astounding ways in which our minds affect our bodies<\/a>, French philosopher and political activist Simone Weil<\/strong> (February 3, 1909\u2013August 24, 1943) \u2014 one of the most remarkable thinkers of the past century, whom Albert Camus<\/a> aptly proclaimed \u201cthe only great spirit of our times\u201d \u2014 examined the delicate relationship between our physical and spiritual suffering, between the anguish of the material body and that of the soul.<\/p>\n

A few months before her painful yet stoic death from tuberculosis \u2014 despite her diagnosis and her doctor\u2019s explicit orders to eat heartily, Weil consumed only what was rationed to her compatriots under the German Occupation in a remarkable gesture of solidarity, ultimately resulting in fatal malnutrition \u2014 she turned to the problem of pain in First and Last Notebooks<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (public library<\/em><\/a>), the same out-of-print treasure that gave us Weil on temptation and the key to discipline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an entry from late 1942, Weil considers how our instinctive reaction to suffering often only amplifies our pain:<\/p>\n

The way to make use of physical pain. When suffering no matter what degree of pain, when almost the entire soul is inwardly crying \u201cMake it stop, I can bear no more,\u201d a part of the soul, even though it be an infinitesimally small part, should say: \u201cI consent that this should continue throughout the whole of time, if the divine wisdom so ordains.\u201d The soul is then split in two. For the physically sentient part of the soul is \u2014 at least sometimes \u2014 unable to consent to pain. This splitting in two of the soul is a second pain, a spiritual one, and even sharper than the physical pain that causes it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"simoneweil\"<\/a>There is almost a Buddhist undertone to Weil\u2019s insistence on accepting everything that is, as it is, without compounding pain with \u201cthe second arrow\u201d<\/a> of our tendency to resist any unpleasantness and judge it as a kind of personal failure, which in turn precipitates an even graver sense of dissatisfaction. One is reminded at once of the Chinese philosophy of wu-wei<\/em><\/a> and of Rilke\u2019s famous words \u2014 \u201cLet everything happen to you: beauty and terror.\u201d<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, Weil\u2019s philosophy of suffering embraces Rilke\u2019s everythingness \u2014 she extends it beyond physical pain and into other forms of bodily and spiritual discomfort that we habitually exacerbate by stiffening with resistance to the unpleasantness:<\/p>\n

A similar use can be made of hunger, fatigue, fear, and of everything that imperatively constrains the sentient part of the soul to cry: I can bear no more! Make it stop! There should be something in us that answers: I consent that it should continue up to the moment of death, or that it should not even finish then, but continue for ever. Then it is that the soul is as if divided by a two-edged sword.<\/em><\/p>\n

To make use in this way of the sufferings that chance inflicts upon us is better than inflicting discipline upon oneself.<\/em><\/p>\n

Weil\u2019s First and Last Notebooks<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, hard though it may be to find, is a perennially profound read from cover to cover \u2014 an intensely intimate glimpse of one of the most significant minds of the twentieth century, whose ideas influenced such luminaries as Susan Sontag, Iris Murdoch, Flannery O\u2019Connor, and Cornel West. Complement this particular passage with C.S. Lewis on how suffering confers agency upon life<\/a> and Nietzsche on why a full life requires embracing rather than running from suffering<\/a>.<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Brain Pickings<\/em> is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large obsessed with combinatorial creativity who also writes for <\/em>Wired<\/em> UK and <\/em>The Atlantic<\/em>, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. She has gotten occasional help from a handful of guest contributors<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brainpickings.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is almost a Buddhist undertone to Weil\u2019s insistence on accepting everything that is, as it is, without compounding pain with \u201cthe second arrow\u201d of our tendency to resist any unpleasantness and judge it as a kind of personal failure, which in turn precipitates an even graver sense of dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58319\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}