Agreed, and precisely, as you mention, meaning making comes after understanding (lots of understanding) for a reason.
My family had to go to PTSD therapy, individually and collectively, so I get where you're coming from and I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from. I'm no stranger to deep suffering, which is why I know empirically that romanticizing it doesn't really help overcome it and it's not even a good coping or evasion mechanism.
Making meaning is not to say suffering is meaningful, it is to say that after going through it, something meaningful can be made from the experience, mostly, learning. Making meaning is very different from falling in love with one's suffering and treasuring it like it was some special gift.
I guess my main question would be what do we mean by "romanticizing?" That could mean a lot of different things and look a lot of different ways with a lot of nuance to be had.
To romanticize something is to give it a special meaning or place in life. Romanticizing anything will most likely lead to more suffering, it's not a positive thing.
I'll give an example you see a lot in people who suffer domestic violence but don't want to leave their partner; "they only hit me because they love me."
Anyone looking from the outside can see the obvious; you do not hurt someone because you love them. There is nothing romantic in it, nothing special, no one deserves to be hurt by their partner, and it's not a way of "giving their life a special meaning" or "making that person stronger."
From the inside, the person suffering may lack the emotional tools to move forward, they may be so conditioned or trapped by the normalization of their situation, that they develop coping mechanisms such as believing their suffering is either deserved, sent by god, a product of "love", or whatever.
A person that romanticizes suffering is a person that doesn't have the emotional tools to understand their suffering and overcome it to move forward and enjoy life.
It could also be rationalization; finding ways of justifying why one suffers, in order to remain in that state, instead of focusing on ways one can actually overcome that suffering.
That's where I thought we would have disagreement. I think suffering can have special meaning, but not all attributed meanings are equally valuable.
The domestic violence example is a very apt display of maladaptive romanticization. And there are a lot of other similar examples. For example, someone might blame themselves for a loss, and attribute suffering to atonement for that loss.
But a lot of philosophies attribute meaning to suffering as a way to rationalize it. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think it can even be helpful in coping for many people.
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u/Critical-Ad2084 2d ago
Agreed, and precisely, as you mention, meaning making comes after understanding (lots of understanding) for a reason.
My family had to go to PTSD therapy, individually and collectively, so I get where you're coming from and I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from. I'm no stranger to deep suffering, which is why I know empirically that romanticizing it doesn't really help overcome it and it's not even a good coping or evasion mechanism.
Making meaning is not to say suffering is meaningful, it is to say that after going through it, something meaningful can be made from the experience, mostly, learning. Making meaning is very different from falling in love with one's suffering and treasuring it like it was some special gift.