Suffering

The greatest failure is suffering to the point of despair.
Despair is the product of a suffering so great, that one wishes for death as the only amelioration. Despair occurs when death will not come. This lack of respite causes despair, which indicates a characterological flaw, that one has lost hope in redemption and purpose.

Suffer that can not be abated should be endured with dignity to signify hope. As endured effectively our suffering becomes a sacrifice. The nature of this sacrifice is not the suffering, not the pain in sympathy for God's suffering, no. The sacrifice is the ejection of despair onto death. The striving to endure suffering exhibits the fine nature, of an elevated spirit. It exemplifies the hope and meaningful purpose of existence in the face of a flawed world. It shows the enduring quality of the spirit in sharp contrast to the meaningless and random nature of violence and deprivation that exemplifies the current imperfect state in which we exist, and live, and feel.

This striving towards meaning is not a philosophical exercise. It engenders the personal experience of life with meaning, where otherwise the threat of meaninglessness looms ready to engulf us. To reject despair onto death is to embrace hope that there is purpose to one's experience, that may benefit someone, in someway, even when it is absolutely not clear to us how that could be. When one can see the meaning it takes not hope but endurance to push through suffering. When no goal or meaning is apparent it takes dumb, unquestioning loyalty to hope to move forward, without death, without amelioration, without narcotizing the senses. This is the pure act of devotion that I have such a hard time committing to.