Sufferings Role In Peace

Formerly, I’ve argued that what's truly valuable in a man is inner peace, however, is that ever attainable in our mortal lives? Truthfully I don’t think anyone can ever find a steady state of balance as long as they live. Only at night when there truly is nothing else other than yourself and the moonlight peaking out your curtains can you attain a state of relaxation or peace that is quickly deprevated by the tasks of the morning. Perhaps what we desire is desire itself or the illusion of a peace that is only made valuable through our own desire. It sounds paradoxical but what if the value in human life is found in both the desire for what’s interpreted as valuable and the suffering of pursuing it?

  In a way we’re masochists, we lack the rationality to commit suicide and we love suffering. I suppose that there are two types of suffering within the human experience. Suffering for which is not truly valuable and is only seen as such through the lens of others; and suffering for what is truly righteous and valuable to ourselves. How absurd is it that we are fulfilled through our suffering which is also the product of the very thing we consider to be valuable! Nihilists find their haven because of suffering and ascetics find gratification through their temperance. The common man however is truly unfortunate, as he does not understand what is truly valuable so there can be no righteousness in his suffering. Meanwhile true nihilist and ascetics understand a value that transcends that of their peers and is truly augmented through interpersonal faith (sometimes). One who understands what is valuable finds peace through the pursuit of it, that is what life is and will forever be. 

One must imagine Sisyphus happy, the man who is strenuously ascending the stone of life to achieve the true nature of value finds his peace in his suffering despite its paradoxical nature. Peace is not simply a momentary pause between the former task and the latter, God is found when one walks through the valley of the shadow of death, fulfillment is found in its ouroboros of continuous suffering. The mystic who spends all his years searching for the philosopher's stone finds peace in his pursuit of what is truly valuable. Something that resonates within his very soul and defies its rationality.