What does it mean to suffer? We all know, and fear, physical pain. It’s the gold standard of suffering. We can’t help but cringe at the thought of being slowly tortured by a sadistic captor. The public spectacle of torture reminds us daily of the possibility and the imagination works its wonders on our mind.

We have all had physical pain of some sort. Some of us have suffered from chronic, lingering pain. It’s unpleasant. It’s fucking painful. And there are degrees of pain that we don’t want to contemplate. We are grateful that when your tooth abscesses you don’t have to drink a half a bottle of whiskey while a half-drunk “dentist” removes the offending source of the pain from your mouth with a grimy pair of pliers. We count ourselves fortunate that we don’t live in fear of that kind of physical pain. There are piles of palliative chemicals that will help us through the occasional physical trauma. For those that suffer intense, chronic pain the chemicals can only modify the intensity. Physical pain is a threat, but not the way it was even a century ago.

No one welcomes physical pain. We fear it at the most primeval level of our being. But it’s not a fear that keeps us up at night. It is not a fear, for most, that is the source of our dread of the day, if we have it. Physical pain is simple pain. It is pure and real. You can’t question it. In fact, it may be the most real phenomenon any of us will ever experience. How do you deny it? There is an immediacy, a reality of physical pain that transcends the fuzzy narcissism of everyday experience. There is clarity in physical suffering. The body is threatened. Everything is focused on that fact, a fact that is indisputable.

But what about the many other lesser types of suffering? Where do they fit in? Anxiety is not physical suffering. It shouldn’t even be in the same class as physical pain. But what causes real misery in this world? Is it physical pain or mental anguish.

Misery is a disease of the mind. Physical pain is not misery. It is just pure unadulterated suffering. The fear of suffering is misery. The fear of living is misery. Ennui is misery. Self loathing is misery. Politics is misery. Sickness of the mind is misery. Misery has no gradations. It is a negation of life. Living becomes a liability, a burden. Misery is the sickness of the human world. Obscured by whatever distraction money can buy, it persists.

It is for the relief of this misery that any political/social agenda ought to be bent.

It has come to my attention that the most pressing issue before us, as a species, is to preserve to the greatest possible extent possible the conditions within which we currently reside. All economic and political organs must in all places and at all times do their utmost (and by that I mean anything goes) to insure that the the current basic structure that under-girds modern civilization be reinforced, patched, jury-rigged, duct-taped, plastered, stuccoed etc…

There is not only a linguistic connection between Statist and statist. They are of the same nature. All institutions (the appellation entails what follows) are inclined to preserve sameness, continuity, rigidity, conformity ad nauseum.

I submit to you that we create these institutions for that purpose alone. With continuity we derive the hope of predictability. Sameness is saneness.

“Give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, give me that old time religion, it’s good enough for me.” (You’re singing along right now, right?)