Which Is Better?

Here’s a quote that’s stuck with me for a long time.

“And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better–cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

While I read a slightly different translation, this is close enough. Whether it’s “lofty suffering” or “noble suffering”, Dostoyevsky’s narrator is a man who wonders if he knows too much. He imagines people who know less being able to navigate their lives without a care in the world.

The phrase, “Ignorance is bliss,” comes to mind. But how can we remain optimistic when we are fully aware of just how rotten people can be?

Now is a time when I am appalled to read the news each day. Without drudging up each and every grievance, let me say that I’m finding it difficult not to ruminate on it all.

I believe that most humans are often kind-hearted. I believe that we’re “better together”, a phrase from Simon Sinek. We can solve many problems by working with each other and by learning to understand each other. I believe in progress. In many ways, humans are better off today than at any other time during history.

And yet, I am not blind to the cruelty and injustice that still plagues humanity. I know how greed works. I see how power can be abused.

Recognizing and trying to understand the ugliness in the world day after day causes me to suffer. But I refuse to let it blind me to the beauty that also persists.

I am grateful to be alive here and now!