Russian prisoners who survived the Gulag Archipelago, Jewish prisoners in German prison camps as depicted in Man’s Search for Meaning, African slaves, prisoners of war throughout history, all have been able to valiantly find meaning in the worst atrocities committed to human beings – all without medication, or vice, to alleviate their suffering. How can we justify crutches, moral vices, or medication for less traumatic, less suffering inducing stressors, when those before us have endured tenfold and been able to survive, find meaning, and live happy, despite their much greater suffering, misfortune, and injustice?

If none of these people were afforded an escape, or an alleviation, and they had to find meaning, find a way to psychologically remain strong and continue living, why do we, who find ourselves in much more fortunate circumstances, deserve the ability to escape? How can we justify the escape from the misfortune of life when the rest of the world suffers, and has suffered, to a much greater extent? Everyone goes through horrible mental states, not everyone has the same experiences, and obviously some people’s justifications and circumstances imply a more profound suffering than many, yet given the horrendous crimes against humanity which we’ve valiantly overcome, individually, and societally, how can many of us still not see the potential as proven by our forefathers of the human ability to overcome the most horrendous difficulties, and in so recognizing not be utterly convinced of our own inert potential to do the same in our own lives?

If those in the worst situations imaginable, such as those who underwent the atrocities of the twentieth century, were offered medication to alleviate their suffering they surely would have taken it. If they were offered an escape, a pleasure, a pastime, a way out of their situation, they surely wouldn’t hesitate in accepting it. Yet the possibility of such things doesn’t make it optimal. The virtue of forbearance and courage in not reducing the experience through artificial means implies a greater potential gain in the overcoming of challenges. The task of running one-hundred miles barefoot is more impressive than he who runs one-hundred miles in shoes. He who undergoes the pain of existence through the strength of his character and will develops a stronger character than he who alleviates his suffering. There is a line, discernible with wisdom, of the place in which we should take medicine, at the place in which we should shirk responsibility and discipline for the optimization of wellbeing, a point where continued endurance would not provide a character benefit, but rather be harmful. That line is separate for every individual, yet we must not, in anticipatory anxiety, relieve ourselves of self responsibility and independence too soon, we must push to that line, rather than alleviate ourselves of the burden through fear of failure while we still contain the potential of going farther and thus overcoming more. This takes wisdom, and it is a necessary caveat to the voluntary “cross bearing” and suffering inherent in facing the demons of existence. Temperance through fire, forging through pressure, character creation, virtue establishment, these are things which any individual, in effectively integrating his psyche, should wish to promote. It is in those challenges that present themselves to us, in those moments of mental weakness, anxiety, anger, and sadness, that we are tested the most, and to which, in relation to, we have the greatest potential for improvement. The only determining factor is how we deal with these moments, these period, how we choose to cope with existence itself in its ups and downs. That which we do in this world has an effect on our character, on the totality of our Being. The way we navigate life now, influences our further navigation of life. The more inclined and susceptible we are to vice in the moment, the more we indulge in it, the more likely we are to in the future. We must not set ourselves up for continued suffering, nor continued weakness, we must only act strongly, in that which is most virtuous, in order to increase in virtue, and increase the probability of responding to difficulty with strength and virtue in the future.

Character development is more important than hedonistic pleasure. That truth, virtue, and personal growth, in the ability to overcome life’s challenges independent of substance or external aide, is more valuable than ignorance, bliss, and crutches upon sensual and psychological pleasure. Derivation of pleasure from virtue and from truth is greater than the pleasure gained from ignorance and sensory stimulation. I’m arguing the pleasure of truth, and virtue, outweighs any potential pleasure of ignorance and sensory pleasure, while drugs surely register higher dopamine, I argue, that a life in abstinence and of pursuing virtuous conduct outweighs one to the contrary, but of course, the issue becomes more complex as we balance the two, and it becomes a question under which domains is ignorance better than knowledge, under which domains should we pursue virtuous conduct or prolonged gain over immediate pleasure, etc.

It’s just hard, and by hard I mean impossible, in practical life, to prove one course of action is better than another, given our lack of foresight of all the variables and the unquantifiable nature of wellbeing, especially in relation to long possible future time branches in different action causal chains. These things are easy to philosophically reason but hard to apply in convincing others of their actual implementing. While the pursuance of meaning and the voluntary undertaking of difficulty in the pursuit of what one values, in personal growth, is accepted by all on a theoretical level as being “good” and praiseworthy”, to see it implemented in the lives of people who haven’t experientially realized the actual benefit in carrying out such activities, the change in lifestyle towards one in this direction is almost impossible to instantiate from the outside. It merely is an individual choice, a path to be undertaken by the willing participant, who opts for it himself. While we can gain inspiration, and the thought may come from outside, the undertaking of voluntary change, the adoption of responsibility and the pursuit of what one considers consciously as meaningful, is something that must be pursued from the individual of his own volition. All we can do, as contemplatives, as philosophers or psychologists, is point out the potentiality of such a path existing, and offer logical and rational explanations to its benefit, then, the individual must do more than believe in said justifications, he must test them in his own life. If they are optimal, and provide the meaning which he seeks, he will inevitably fall under the sway of such meaning seeking and carrying out. If he doesn’t find the optimal experiential evidence, he will revert to nihilism, or a less optimal pathway through life.