Contingent suffering is the suffering that is contingent on situational context. — schopenhauer1

The situational context (a redundant phrase) shared by all human beings, the human condition (i.e., existence as a human being), produces its own forms of suffering by means of the choices we make every day.

These are choices which satisfy one's:
1) Corporeal needs and desires (being mindful of mortality),
2) Social needs and desires (being mindful of a transcendent public good), or
3) Ethical needs and desires (being mindful of moral obligations imposed by conscience).

Reaction: choosing to satisfy fundamental human needs in all three categories (i.e., corporeal, social, and ethical) results in the least amount of contingent suffering produced by the human condition.

I think most people procreate before reaching this level of philosophical thinking! Amidst a battle with depression, I found myself married with two children before reaching the point of being suicidal, which finally made me want to take a serious look at the way I was living my life.

Now that my children exist, I want to minimize the amount of suffering in their lives, by equipping them with tools that will hopefully make them more mentally resilient later in life.

We all know that some people "have it better" than others in terms of illnesses, bad experiences, suffering experienced etc. — schopenhauer1

The mere fact they have it better, suggests you may have it better too at some point. Who knows? Life is like a box of chocolates - someone told me - you never know what you're going to get >:O

What say you all? — schopenhauer1

You forgot the "what's the big deal?" reaction. In other words, what's the big deal that people have different lives, some with more pleasurable experiences, others with less, etc.?

You seem to presume a priori that everyone should have the same life - that's what it seems that you would expect. Otherwise, if that's not the case, it's unequal, and that's bad!

You forgot the "what's the big deal?" reaction. In other words, what's the big deal that people have different lives, some with more pleasurable experiences, others with less, etc.? — Agustino

Because if it is not you having the pleasurable life, then that would clearly suck. But of course, you might point to the writings that people throughout history from Job, Stoics, and Nietzsche have played off suffering as if it's no big deal. Unfortunately, that is literature and one step removed from the situation :’( .

You seem to presume a priori that everyone should have the same life - that's what it seems that you would expect. Otherwise, if that's not the case, it's unequal, and that's bad! — Agustino

No, not the same life in terms of same goals and preferences, just the same in not having to deal with a great deal of undesirable elements of their lives.

Because if it is not you having the pleasurable life, then that would clearly suck. — schopenhauer1

Yeah big deal. I can say large parts of my life "sucked". So what? There's something exceedingly adolescent-like about complaining about things. Sometimes you're in a tough situation and you have to battle it out, or at least try to. Not a big deal. I know I'm not equal to others, and others aren't equal to me, but there's no ressentiment there. I don't resent those who are better off or wish I was like them. I'm happy with what I have and who I am, and it's something that people have to learn. Wishing for what others have, and always looking at what your neighbor has and you don't is the way to misery.

No, not the same life in terms of same goals and preferences, just the same in not having to deal with a great deal of undesirable elements of their lives. — schopenhauer1

That would be boring, because no bad surprises means no good surprises either. In addition, part of the pleasure of a journey is the difficulty of reaching your destination. If it is all easy, then there is little pleasure.

Statistical- Some people will simply have less mental/physical problems, are able to cope better than others, etc. There is no way to tell who will deal with less contingent suffering. — schopenhauer1

We are better at predicting what will happen to groups of people, than we are predicting what will happen to individuals, but groups are made up of individuals.

Take Puerto Rico's situation. The island's population is suffering now, and is likely to suffer more in the near future. That Hurricane Maria leveled a good share of their housing and infrastructure is contingent. That their housing and infrastructure was in bad shape was caused by neglect -- not by chance. The current contingent suffering would have been reduced if the infrastructure and housing had been strengthened.

There is also a good deal of contingent suffering in Houston. But allowing people to build housing on low ground (that everyone knows will eventually flood) and in floodplains isn't contingent, it's just irresponsible, and was preventable.

Most people will die of circulatory disease, cancer, or infection. A much smaller share will be murdered, suffer accidents, commit suicide, and so on. We know we definitely will die; we have some choice over what we die from. Heavy smoking and drinking frequently leads to death by cancer. Some of this is avoidable by not smoking and drinking heavily. People who bicycle, motorcycle, or drive recklessly have a greater chance of dying from accident than people who ride and drive carefully.

Some people, as you say, are going to avoid most of the causes of death, will live a long time, may still be active after a century of living, and will die from general organ failure -- they will just wear out. Contingency seems to play a big role for these people.

Not reproducing is one method of reducing suffering -- especially the suffering one can't do anything about. But a lot of suffering is preventable.

To me, true suffering equates to not wanting to live.

A person can be experiencing pain, but be able to tolerate it mentally. A person can grieve over the loss of a loved one, but be able to tolerate the emotions. It is only when a person becomes incapable of tolerating the pain or emotion (due to intensity or duration) that they start losing the will to live. However, in most cases, the survival instinct and the desire to minimize the pain and negative emotions of others, will outweigh the desire to end their life.

It makes me think that in order to minimize true suffering in the world, we need to do a better job of grooming our children to be more resilient, to have more realistic expectations, and to be less change averse.

It is only when a person becomes incapable of tolerating the pain or emotion (due to intensity or duration) that they start losing the will to live. — CasKev

Yes, what makes a person incapable of tolerating pain or emotion?

Being that one can never project the probabilities of a particular person, it is best to prevent procreation.

What say you all? — schopenhauer1

I say that that conclusion is absurd. I say that it doesn't follow unless there are hidden premises -
which you should reveal, and which I'd likely reject. And I say that you don't seem to learn your lesson, even after the umpteenth discussion on the same topic.

Yes, what makes a person incapable of tolerating pain or emotion? — Agustino

I would say a number of factors, including but not limited to:
- lack of proper coping mechanisms
- lack of support system
- unrealistic expectations
- being averse to change
- unhealthy levels of attachment
- genetic predisposition
- childhood trauma
- underexposure/overprotection

I would say a number of factors, including but not limited to:
- lack of proper coping mechanisms
- lack of support system
- unrealistic expectations
- being averse to change
- unhealthy levels of attachment
- genetic predisposition
- childhood trauma
- underexposure/overprotection — CasKev

Some of these are very general, and in addition, we don't notice some of these characteristics in some people who do cope with extreme situations of physical & emotional pain (such as ending up in a concentration camp and the like).

Viktor Frankl - in his book Man's Search For Meaning - goes through the characteristics that enabled those who survived Auschwitz to, well, survive.

These characteristics seem to be undying hope, living day by day, and remaining attached to life. Those who became apathetic were the first to die, very frequently their bodies, including immune systems, would give up. Whereas those who, for example, wanted to see their families again, and not only this but hoped despite everything that they will see their families, they were the most likely to survive.

1) Nietzschean- Live life like its your work of art. All the suffering one experiences just adds to the art to make life its own special thing for that individual. It is what makes life more challenging, and challenges are somehow transcendentally good (for some reason). I guess the reasoning is that it gives life its flavor and stories to tell about oneself? People can post-facto embrace life because of the challenges it affords them to overcome and make into their life story. — schopenhauer1

Nietzsche's overman applies to a minority of people. He basically denies that the majority of people can ever achieve such a form of existence, and that because of this their lives suck. If we're being charitable then living your life as though it were a story or a work of art is a good thing because it is self-evidently a good thing. In the same sense that it is self-evident that gratuitous and pointless suffering is a very bad thing. There's no "for some reason" here. If you have to apply "for some reason" then either it's not self-evident, or you aren't the person who can tell that it is self-evident. And clearly this has connections to Nietzsche's "perspectivism" theory of truth. It's not self-evident to you, I'm not sure if it's self-evident to myself, and Nietzsche would have thought both of us aren't qualified right now to become an overman.

Saying "I don't see the value of art" doesn't change the fact that some people do see the value of art. The Nietzschean perspective is that the value of life is objectively indeterminate, and can only be given its value by a projecting subject. In an almost Freudian way, if you disagree with Nietzsche that a life can be a work of art then you're probably not going to be a Nietzschean, or an overman or whatever.

Whether or not anyone can actually be an overman is a different issue altogether. A better argument here would be to accept Nietzsche's concepts but show they fail to be plausible in real life. People are too decadent, too selfish, too full of shit, too whiny, too weak, too mortal, too wasteful, too stupid, etc for Nietzsche's concepts to have any practical application to reality. The overman, amor fati, eternal return, all of these concepts are great but in the end only go to show how unqualified humans are.

Whether or not anyone can actually be an overman is a different issue altogether. A better argument here would be to accept Nietzsche's concepts but show they fail to be plausible in real life. People are too decadent, too selfish, too full of shit, too whiny, too weak, too mortal, too wasteful, too stupid, etc for Nietzsche's concepts to have any practical application to reality. The overman, amor fati, eternal return, all of these concepts are great but in the end only go to show how unqualified humans are. — darthbarracuda

It's hard to be an overman with serious mental illness. It's hard to be an overman with ailments and setbacks that can be quite limiting. Sure maybe they can be overcome or integrated at some point, but that is always in retrospect.

Edit: So, it's much easier for the person with less travails to overcome inequities, so there is already an inherent unequal distribution of who becomes an ubermensch and who does not.

So, yeah maybe there is a work of art created, but it's always one step behind the event as its happening. I don't think retrospective Pollyannaising justifies the suffering as it occurred. Besides this idea of pain makes us better more interesting people, there is simply the notion that the happy moments are worth it. For those who see happy moments as just blips of relief amongst a backdrop of mainly contingent and structural suffering, it is not really consolation. What is real is the burdens of living, the burdens of overcoming, the burdens of time, the burdens of repetitiousness. What is temporary is happy moments. Existence is that which is to be dealt with by the individual ego embodied in its historo-cultural environs.

Not reproducing is one method of reducing suffering -- especially the suffering one can't do anything about. But a lot of suffering is preventable. — Bitter Crank

Does suffering get prevented or just gets more refined? In a time of war, living without being shot might be the most important thing. Perhaps the hurricane was prevented, but what other inevitable harm will come about? Does contingent suffering end or "move up the food chain" to more acute forms? Perhaps it is now other things related to negative experiences, negative preconditions, negative social situations, or a culmination of all of them to create suffering for an individual. What is it about overcoming challenges that we praise? Is it simply a post-hoc coping mechanism, or is this some sort of unstated ethic we need to maintain and propagate? And if we must propagate it, why must future generations be born to overcoming challenges in the first place? Is there a specific reason this principle or is it circular reasoning?