hello
funny ive been thinking the same thing..not sure if you`re looking for a heavy answer, but here are my thoughts so far. i tend to like the thoughts that anything that happens in our lives happens for a reason, that there is a gift within the suffering, and that we choose our parents and even the unfolding of our lives before we are born. i think these ideas have helped me look optomistically at all the suffering ive gone through. recently, after years of depression which culminated in a suicide attempt, i just threw the towel in and wondered why the hell i would do this to myself. honestly. even with things learned, it just seems so excessive for indivuduals - all those who are suffering in any kind of way.

anyway, i came to the idea of thinking of me, and other vulnerable or suffering people, not as isolated individuals but people within societies.

you know he stories of miners who used to take canaries down with them to the mines? how they would know that the air was bad and to get out because the canary would die...well i think perhaps we are like the canaries of our society at some level.

we are the sensitive ones who have reacted, like indicators to the health of a society, when there are subtle holes or stresses or imbalances in that society.... we are taking one for the team, so to speak, absorbing the mess just because our matrix of circumstances put us in the line of fire.. until society changes something.

i read that in traditional african society, they believe that the reason people as individuals get hurt, or accidents happen, is not due to personal karma, choice, or coincidence so much as it simply being a direct indicator of health of the society as a whole. and an accurately reflective one at that.

lately, im happier thinking of my suffering in this way. you could flip it round and call it avoidance, but actually in terms of The Reason Why, i think it makes sense to look at ourselves as unknowingly so much a product of the society we`re born into...