Just Joshin' #102 (Suffering)
1 Family Photo:
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Jensen Huang (The Nvidia Guy) had some advice for Stanford students:
"People with high expectations have low resilience. Unfortunately, resilience matters in success. I don't know how to teach it to you except—I hope suffering happens to you."
He added, "Greatness isn't intelligence, greatness comes from character. And character isn't formed out of smart people, it's formed out of people who have suffered...I wish upon you ample doses of pain & suffering."
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A couple weeks ago, Lawrence climbed up this wooden rail fence by our house. Straddling it, he lost his balance. He gripped the top rail with his hands to maintain control, but it wasn't enough. Gravity won out. His body rolled off the fence slowly, then faster. He landed flat on his back a few feet below. Fortunately, he was wearing his scooter helmet at the time—his head was protected when it thwacked the ground.
The fence gripping took some skin off his fingers though, and also somehow a patch on his forearm. He cried as we carried him all the way home, and until a multi-colored band aide had been applied to every one of his fingertips.
I don't know if this is suffering, or just pain.
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Suffering can be transformational. Marine Corp Boot Camp seems like a good example. Recruits enter boot camp week 1, suffer together for 13 weeks, and are formed into US Marines. The change is somewhat visible from the outside, but it's clearly visible amongst themselves. Then they go around the rest of their lives saying Oorah to each other.
Would a kinder, gentler boot camp—one with less suffering—still mold US Marines? Funny enough, Marines have a trope about The Old Corps: older Marines razz the younger ones for being soft because their training has gotten easier over time. Nobody suffers as much as they did back in the day.
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My friend Paul called Huang's interview suffer porn. People fixate on the suffering story. They identify it as the secret to success. They use it to justify their own misery.
There's a Reddit video circulating of some guys who paid $18,000 for a 3-day "Alpha male bootcamp" to make them "real men". In the video, I see some guys splashing on a beach being degraded by a barefoot guy in a trucker hat with his hands in his pockets. Maybe that's suffering. I'm not convinced it will make them better men. Not all suffering leads to greatness.
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Does greatness require suffering?
Maybe Jensen Huang's success doesn't come from his capacity for suffering? Maybe he does great work because he's engaged in hard work that animates him? Working hard isn't suffering if you enjoy the work.
There is plenty of suffering in the early biographies of people who've done great things:
Jensen Huang was "relentlessly bullied" as an undersized Asian immigrant at a Kentucky boarding school. Young Elon Musk was hospitalized for two weeks as some kids threw him down a flight of stairs. Richard Feynman's high school sweetheart, who became his wife, was ill and hospitalized for most of their relationship, and passed away three years into their marriage. Charlie Munger, at age 31, was divorced, broke, and burying his 9-year old son.
I've never suffered anything like that. Is that the price of greatness? I'm not sure I'm willing to pay.
What about the people who suffer and don't make it through?
1 Dad Joke:
More Suffering
Bro: Bros! Bros! Where can I learn how to suffer?
Bros: Not here Bro! This here is surfering class.
*image by Dad[AI]Base
Highlights:
Even More Suffering
Get Serious: About Suffering by Katherine Boyle
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But eradicating suffering in this country—or at least striving to reach that utopian goal—has come with some unforeseen consequences. Among them: a loss for what to replace suffering with. And the results of the multi-decade war on suffering haven’t been all that impressive. Recent headlines show no one’s coping very well these days, with growing depression and hopelessness among teenage girls and the “crisis of men,” who lag behind women in education and the workplace.
Though we may not realize it, nearly all of our modern cultural debates and ailments stem from the contemporary belief that suffering is not a natural or essential part of the human condition. The war on suffering has not only robbed us of resilience; it has sold us a mirage that is making us miserable.
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We have long been fully invested in eradicating the suffering we deem unconscionable, but more important are the simple questions that define a serious life: For whom will you sacrifice? What will you defend? For what will you choose to suffer?
Why You Need to Suffer to Be Happy by Chris Wojcik
Attachment is suffering, attachment is love by Bess Stillman
How do we evaluate our lives, at the end? What counts, what matters? by Jake Seliger
21 “What is it you want?” he asked.
She said, “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”
22 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
he suffered, died, and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
he ascended into heaven
iamJoshKnox Highlight:
Reposting my essay from last year on falling and getting up and failure and success and learning.
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Also, my book is still available on Amazon here – or reply to this email and I'd love to gift you a copy.
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Josh Knox
Hi! I am Josh Knox. Read more of me here: 👇
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