The Pleasure of Suffering

Virgil’s wisdom is still needed today.

“Some day, perhaps, remembering even this will be a pleasure.”

So says the great Aeneas to his men after they have come ashore near Carthage. With many comrades seemingly lost at sea and their own ships severely damaged — and this after so many travails — the surviving Trojans find scant reason for solace, much less pleasure.

Apart from the perspective of divine revelation giving a supernatural perspective on suffering, can there be meaning, even pleasure in suffering? Aeneas’s rightly immortal words (they have even been inscribed over academic buildings) stand as indication that there can be. For if in remembering there can be pleasure, there should also be the possibility of pleasure in the experience itself.

And Virgil is right: there can be pleasure in remembering suffering. We often remember with pride and satisfaction suffering born nobly, whether our own or someone else’s. The expression that hindsight is 20/20 implies that we are usually able to see a situation more clearly once we are removed from its pressures and passions. Given that this applies to suffering, it would be good to know what hindsight about suffering can see more clearly. And then perhaps we can cultivate the ability to see that same truth even while in the midst of suffering.

The context of Aeneas’ great lines in his exhortatory speech is very helpful:
 

We hold our course for Latium; the very words send a thrill through us. Here is a man that nothing will turn from his divinely inspired course. We see what he has endured, and we marvel. His unswerving dedication is evident to us, and to him. Indeed, how else would even he know his own virtue, except by having endured such suffering? But there is more: Scylla’s rage, Cyclops’ boulders, and countless other adversities have served not only to reveal but also to form and fortify his purpose, his resolve.

Suffering has given Aeneas the opportunity to make the choices that have made him who he is. As now he stands before his men, his identity and stature have been sculpted by his sufferings. Nothing can take that away from him. He knows it, and they know it.

Not that suffering puts us beyond the possibility of failing, of turning back. Sure, another round of suffering could break us. Following the above speech, Virgil writes:
 

Though steeped in anguish, Aeneas feigns hope for the sake of strengthening others in their suffering. Even as we marvel yet again, we are aware both that this is precisely what a good man should do, and that many men do not. Some day, perhaps, remembering even this will be a pleasure. The word perhaps is no mere literary device; the drama of human freedom in the face of suffering is real. A battle rages within Aeneas, who beyond victory in suffering gives us, and probably also him, confidence in his ever-growing fidelity.

Suffering connects us to who we are, and who we really want to be.
At the end of the day, is there something worth suffering for? Only through suffering can we, and do we, really answer this question.

At the direction of the gods, Aeneas has his sights set on Latium — a place he has never been, and thus knows little about. His intention to get there is strong, but if he is to get there it must wax stronger. And so it does, through his suffering.

There is thus importance — dare we say, goodness — in suffering, even apart from the wonderful issue of redemptive suffering in a religious context. But this goodness is very hard to enjoy in the midst of that suffering. Perhaps the next best thing is to trust that some day, remembering even this will be a pleasure. For being confident of delightful hindsight implies at least a taste of pleasure already begun.

Dr. John Cuddeback, professor of philosophy at Christendom College, is a member of the Aleteia board of experts and author of Bacon from Acorns, a blog devoted to the oft-neglected "philosophy of household." He is also the author of True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness.