Hard on Everyone

There's one Bear In Heaven song that I really can't get enough of. It's even on my Defying God playlist - a playlist I'm quite proud of. In particular, there's one lyric of that song that I think has some significance to me.  (Yes, that is a weak statement...)

"Life is hard on everyone"

It's not.

But in a sense, if you don't find life hard, I am inclined to say, with plenty of prejudice, that you aren't living the right way. 

There's a distinction to be drawn between living a hard life and being miserable.  But to live an easy life is, according to me, most likely wrong.  For life to not be hard on you, you must have gotten to a position of comfort by either your own means or you had the good fortune to find yourself in privilege, and you must not have subsequently been put, by yourself or by powers beyond your control, into a position that's personally difficult for you.

It is inevitable that such a person with an 'easy' life is surrounded by people with baggage, people with difficult lives.  Trying to help those who are less fortunate is not an easy task, so...

Any easy-liver is, by definition, in one of two camps:

1. Oblivious - Their eyes are closed.  They are not aware of their surroundings, and they are incapable of understanding others.  Nothing has been demanded of them, so they have not exited the metaphorical cave to experience the greater world.  Ignorance, because they aren't curious enough to see the world for the compromised, chaotic, and painful place that it is.  To this camp, I offer my sympathy, and I hope that somebody opens your eyes.  Furthermore, I hope that once your eyes are opened, you take upon yourself some sort of responsibility and challenge yourself to change the world for the better, whereupon your life will become more vibrant and challenging.

2. Selfish - They are completely aware of the challenges facing others, but intentionally refrain from solving problems that are bigger than themselves.  To this camp, I profess my disdain.  You have doomed yourself to be morally and existentially useless.

Here's an ironic twist to this line of thinking:  if more people were to make their own lives difficult for the sake of improving the world, we may be able to think of living a hard life as entirely separate from being unhappy.  I mean, being able to see a positively healthy future requires that you be disappointed consistently.  Working towards Utopia is difficult, and the failure leads to disillusionment.  But then when people try to ameliorate the unhappiness, they give up.  There is a twisted entwining of earnestness and dissatisfaction.

Now imagine a world that has reached a point where people try their best to actually be good people.  Unhappiness would no longer be the result of disillusionment--it would be the consequence of contingencies, unintentional mistakes, and the simple realities of life.  It's still challenging to sustain that kind of thing, but at least it's rewarding when you know that other people care about you as much as you care about them. 

I care a lot.  I can't do the apathy thing.  Life is hard for me, mostly because I have chosen to take on a few challenges I deem vitally pertinent.  I've essentially decided to leave it to the Universe to decide whether I'll ever be satisfied.  Maybe that's the right thing to do.