by James Wallace Harris, 6/15/25
If I ignore the depressing news on my screens, I can step out of my front door and view a beautiful world. Looking at the photo above, do you see heaven or hell? We seldom consider Earth a paradise, but we all experience moments of beauty and serenity, as well as moments of pain and suffering. We spend our lives avoiding the one and seeking the other.
For most of my life, I felt like I was climbing a hill towards my dreams, but now, in my seventies, it feels like I’m sliding down that hill. I wonder if I’ve been chasing fantasies while ignoring reality. There is a book of conversations with Philip K. Dick called What If Our World Is Their Heaven? I’ve often wondered if we were living in heaven and didn’t know it, or worse, what if we were living in heaven and were turning it into hell.
Over the last several years, theories have been proposed that our universe is an artificial reality. I’ve always objected to that idea, but it asks a fascinating philosophical question: If we’re living in a synthetic reality, did we choose to be in it? Why would we want to experience so much pain and suffering?
I’ve always believed our existence is a Darwinian reality where everything happens due to randomness. If I believed in God, I would have to ask: Why do you make us suffer?
Hinduism and the concept of reincarnation also suggest something interesting. That belief system claims we are souls coming to this reality to evolve, and suffering is a teaching tool.
Whether we are here by accident or choice, it still leaves the question: Why do we suffer? If our pains are due to the luck of the draw, how do we make the best of a bad situation? If we’re in some kind of cosmic classroom, what are we supposed to learn? And if we’re a participant in a monstrous computer game, how do we win?
Is it delusion to think our place in the universe is anything other than an accident?
Because an algorithm observed me read one story on coping with life in my seventies, they have sent me many more. I’ve seen list after list of the personality traits of those who survive well and those who don’t. I can’t help but wonder if there is a correlation between belief and how we survive.
Do people who believe life has no purpose succumb quicker than those who think we do? And even if we accept that we’re living a Darwinian existence, aren’t there two approaches to that, too? Isn’t existentialism a positive choice over naturalism or fatalism?
Even people of rock-solid faith die horrible deaths. Few people escape this world without suffering. If suffering is so integral to existence, what is its purpose?
JWH
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