There is nothing unique in misery.

Universal emotion.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”¹ This is bullshit. There is nothing unique in misery.

In Plato’s myth, the denizens of the cave are distracted by shadows. Only once they remove themselves do they realize the illusory nature of those shadows. When it comes to the topic of depression, trauma, and psychological pain, a similar assumption is warranted: most people’s complaints exist only in their brains, and have no bearing on or correspondence with the real world.²

The brain is a machine with inputs and outputs. The inputs are beliefs, and the outputs are emotions. If you convince someone that their loved one is dead, they will feel grief. If you reveal this to be a prank, they may feel anger, and eventually, relief. The brain can only produce emotions based on what it perceives — at no time is the brain capable of interacting directly with “objective reality.”³

Scientists attempt to model reality using mathematics, geometry, and pattern recognition. They create maps to simplify, cut apart, and analyze complex systems.⁴ Yet while scientists get a lot of value out of dissecting material reality in this way, the scientific method seems alien and obtuse when it comes to emotional phenomena. Say the aforementioned loved one really has died. How should you feel about this?

Morally, one might feel an obligation to mourn, because to simply “go on” or “forget” seems disrespectful. To forget the dead is to abandon them, and abandonment is a betrayal. By letting go of those we have lost, we are losing them a second time.

Thus mourning can be reduced to two fears:

1. the fear of being a bad person;

2. the fear of losing a connection.

There is nothing unique, special, or remarkable about this.

Is suffering moral?

One reason to valorize suffering is because those who suffer more tend to be more moral. Whether or not this is true, it is an assumption worth considering. Let’s imagine two people, one of whom suffers intensely; the other suffers barely at all. The latter type is suspected to be more sociopathic, to look out for their own selfish interest, and to be less concerned with the suffering of others. The former is assumed to be more careful and conscientious in their empathy.

Without determining whether these assumptions are wrong or right, we can at least imagine another way of looking at things. For example, let us imagine that the one who suffers more is rendered impotent, and also unpleasant, as a result of their suffering. Their sex drive is reduced; their motivation to work is sapped; their sociality is tapped; their creativity is sluggish; their athleticism is in the drain. As a result of stress and worry, they are reduced to a puddle of jello. On the other hand, the supposed “sociopath,” who had very little suffering at all, is sexually alert; highly motivated; creative; athletic; and socially engaged. Which of these two people is more “moral”?

If we define morality purely in the negative (thou shalt not), then perhaps the suffering one comes out on top. But if we define morality in the positive, according to opportunity cost, then the “sociopath” is more likely to win the contest. In moping around and being miserable, the suffering martyr denies others the pleasure of a good time, while the “sociopath” remains the life of the party.

For the last three years, I can count on one hand the number of “social excursions” I’ve enjoyed. Still, even assuming a totally monastic life, the suffering moper is of no benefit to anyone else: they don’t produce wealth, art, beauty, sexual intimacy, romance, or adventure. They cannot love.

Just as death denies us the opportunity to love the ones we have lost, so too is misery like a “little death,” which denies everyone the opportunity to be loved.

In death, we all become the same: inert, impotent, non-existent. Non-being is a state of absolute non-differentiation — there’s nothing to distinguish one bag of bones from another bag of bones. Difference only appears in life.

Thus, misery is a step toward death, toward non-differentiation, and the destruction of uniqueness. What is unique, special, and worth of praise can only come about through triumph over misery.

Doubt

Christianity can be interpreted in various ways. The ethos of “momento mori” suggests that we should keep our minds focused on death, and avoid the enjoyment of sensuous pleasures. On the other hand, the doctrine of forgiveness and rebirth suggests that we should seek to overcome the fear of death, or the guilt of sin, and instead rejoice in salvation and the free gift of eternal life.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Prince Arjuna surveys the battlefield and finds many reasons to despair. He sees friends, brothers, fathers, grandfathers, cousins, and all sorts of relatives and kinsmen. He imagines everything that can go wrong.

He imagines that the battle will result in family chaos. As the men of the family are slaughtered, the women back home will have no leadership. As a result, the daughters will turn into sluts, fucking outside their caste. This will result in the birth of mutants and freaks, “unwanted populations.” Arjuna is imagining a dysgenic civilization in which the best are eliminated, while the worst rise to the top. One could call it idiocracy, but he is not concerned with IQ, but with virtue and morality.

We can question whether Arjuna’s vision was plausible or not, but it is a horrifying vision: a world in which each generation becomes more selfish, more short-sighted, and more sociopathic, until we all descend into cannibalism and chaos. Krishna’s message to Arjuna is simple: do your duty, and stop caring about the consequences.

In the case of Arjuna, his duty was clear: he was being told by God himself to fight. But life isn’t always so clear. At any time, we could break up with a girlfriend, quit a job, move to a new city, and do something entirely different. It’s not always so apparent what our duty is, at any given moment. This lack of direction inspires a great deal of misery. Indecision traps us between two fears: the fear that we are being too cowardly to leave and try something new, and the fear that we are being disloyal and not appreciating what we already have.

This can apply to friendships, romantic relationships, jobs, and more abstract concepts like political ideology or religion. How convenient would it be if Krishna was our charioteer, whispering in our ear, telling us exactly what to do. And yet — this is exactly what Arjuna had, and he still doubted!

There is always room for doubt — if we allow it. No matter how solid a relationship or job or friendship might be, there is always a way to compare it to perfection and deconstruct it. On the other hand, no matter how miserable a relationship might be, there’s always a “devil you don’t know,” a fear of loneliness and the unknown, which can keep us trapped and imprisoned in something terrible.

Secret Third Thing

Unlike in science, where we can map out all the veins and capillaries, emotional life seems completely unmoored from the empirical. There are a few ways to deal with this unmooring:

1. Become self-obsessive, and try to “figure it out.” Go to therapy; blame your parents; get a diagnosis; try psychedelics; try an esoteric diet; join a cult; do rituals; a 12-step program; etc etc.

2. Dismiss your emotions. Become numb and apathetic. Ignore the doubts, the fears, the misery, but also the love. Shut it all out, shut it all down. Become a zombie. Do the bare minimum. Drag yourself out of bed, and then back into bed, barely recognizing the difference from one day to the next.

3. The secret third thing.

The secret third thing, I believe, is to fully recognize these emotions, to acknowledge and accept them, to feel them completely, but to reduce them to their root and origin in the most basic sense. Whereas the first option is pedantic, obsessive, and particular, and the second option is zombified, apathetic, and numb, this “secret third option” is universal, essential, and simple.

Rather than blaming bio-chemistry, a hormonal imbalance, a bad diet, a traumatic childhood, spiritual deception, the Protestant Reformation, materialism, the demiurge, Satan, Epstein, the Democrats, or whatever other thesis that could fill a 1,000 page book about your life, instead focus on the immediate sensation of the emotion. Fear. Loss. Guilt. Regret. Focus on that emotion in its most basic form, without trying to intellectually conquer it through genealogy or causal analysis. Simply recognize, acknowledge, and name the emotion. I am afraid. And there is nothing unique about my misery.

When this is acknowledged, that the pain is something general and not specific, it can be dealt with at the highest level, rather than getting lost in the weeds.

So much misery is caused by a sense of arbitrary necessity, which, in reality, is based on circular logic. I feel miserable because I was abandoned, I was betrayed, I was hurt, and so on and so forth — but if you dig a little deeper, you will find that there is some aspect of the ego being upheld. Perhaps being miserable is a way to “get back” at someone else, or even to “punish” yourself. Children do this naturally — they cry to punish their parents. It’s very logical for a child to do this, but not as logical for an adult to continue that behavior.

Misery isn’t unique — every baby on Earth cries quite regularly. There’s nothing special or remarkable about a crying baby. This doesn’t mean that we ignore the baby. It should, after all, be given attention, love, and care. But at some point, it’s also necessary to recognize that the baby might be crying because… of nothing at all.

One could be the best mother in the world, with delicious milk, instant diaper-changing abilities, the most beautiful singing voice, a warm and gentle touch, and everything else that a baby could ever desire. And yet, the baby might still cry. Perhaps, even in a perfect world, we are designed to cry. Crying has very few negative consequences, when you’re a baby! There is little opportunity cost to crying. It’s not like your baby-productivity at your baby-job is going to decrease because of your crying.

But as we age, and we gain the ability to contribute value to the world, to love those around us, and to form active relationships (rather than just passively receiving love), there is a cost to being miserable.

Conclusion

Narcissists love attention, and they often receive this through self-pity. By constructing grandiose narratives — often, self-hating narratives — they occupy their own minds with ideas like, “I’m the worst person ever.” This justifies them trying to “fix” themselves, through more narcissistic investigations, going ever-deeper into the recesses of their mind. They overthink every interaction, every detail, going back into their childhood, scrutinizing every choice, every “trauma,” reliving it, over and over.

Does this work? Is the narcissist really “fixing” or “healing” themselves? Or are they just addicted to navel gazing?

We can imagine someone who lives a completely unexamined life, and find something lacking. But such people don’t need advice, because they don’t take advice — a true sociopath won’t hear these arguments and be swayed either way. They will simply act however they want; moral arguments don’t work on them.

When having these discussions, it’s important to consider the audience. If a narcissist believes that they need to be miserable to “fix themselves,” that’s a moral argument. It’s one that needs to be scrutinized.

I am not arguing that misery should be replaced with apathy. Rather, I’m arguing that emotions like misery should be brought to their simplest, most essential form: fear. By recognizing the ultimate simplicity of fear, its universality, its non-uniqueness, the moral pride and narcissistic thrill derived from the complexity of human misery can be dispelled. Fear is boring, mundane, and uninteresting. Yet it is powerful, and deserves recognition and attention.

Fear produces a myriad of hydra-like descendants: guilt, shame, sadness, regret, depression, anxiety, mourning, anger. Rather than trying to get ultra-pedantic about what we should have said, or what we should have done, or how to change, or what to change… rather than getting more specific about our actions, we can get more general about our emotions.

The effect of changing our perspective, from one which is pedantic to one which is universal, is to dispel the magic and gain a more scientific and objective point of view. Fear is like a spider’s web: the more you specify, the more you are likely to get tangled up in it. Instead of adding to the complexity, reduce it. See how utterly simple and common-place it is. Recognize it as powerful, but boring.

Fear simply isn’t interesting. It is a powerful parasite, a bloated worm, feeding on our curiosity, creativity, flexibility, and youthfulness. We can’t take risks while living in fear. A fearful life is a zombie life. True uniqueness is found in courage and boldness.

Procrastination is born in fear. To avoid confronting basic truths, fear creates impossible, perfectionist standards. “I can’t act until I’m sure about the right decision.” But that’s not true! I get in my car and drive around in a killing machine — statistically speaking, I might kill or be killed, but I’m reasonably sure that it will be fine. Paranoia is a prison — a boring, uninteresting, mundane prison. Embrace danger. Adventure awaits!

1. From Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina.

2. Tragedy prides itself on complication. It is narcissistic. It imagines itself as special and unique. This self-conception is self-serving.

3. This doesn’t mean that we should embrace nihilism or relativism regarding the truth. There may be objectively good, true, accurate, and factual statements. Whether or not we can fully understand those things, or whether we can prove them to be true to our logical satisfaction, is a question for philosophy.

4. Everyone has a slightly different circulatory system, but we can aggregate and standardize, focusing on larger veins, and generalizing when it comes to the smaller capillaries. In this “tree model,” we are fairly certain about the big picture, and we gloss over the little details.