Some years ago, it became fashionable to label the problems that people who do not have many problems as being first world problems.  Often, this expression was meant to mock the privileged existence of people for whom the basic survival needs of having adequate amounts of nutritious food, clean drinking water, shelter, safe living conditions, and the like, were met and exceeded.  We might be led to believe that these basic and fundamental needs are real problems and that other problems are not real.  Yet even if we fulfill the physical needs of people, there are other needs that need to be fulfilled.  Children in orphanages who are given enough food to eat and shelter and everything that their bodies need but are not given love and affection are harmed in serious ways.  People who come from privileged backgrounds, we would say, certainly when compared to the rest of the world, but who find themselves subjected to continual ridicule and abuse, find themselves struggling to maintain the will to live in the face of such persistent hostility.  Are problems that deform the heart and keep us from being able to relate to others well or even maintain our will to live imaginary problems because our bellies are full and we have a roof over our heads?

Instead of viewing the problems of privileged people as being illegitimate because they are not basic and fundamental, it is more worthwhile to consider that no privilege that human beings can possess is good enough to keep our existence from poopiness.  No life that we can live can ensure that we do not suffer from bad health, that our friends and family and pets do not suffer and die, that we receive the love and respect and honor of those around us, or that we will not suffer from a million petty injustices and inconveniences.  No life is free from trouble.  No matter how much money we have, we will still age, as will those around us, we will still suffer aches and pains, and our bodies and minds will decay and fail.  We will forget things.  People will break our hearts.  We will be insulted, ridiculed, and abused.  People will make false accusations about us and assume evil things about us.  People will judge us by appearances without knowing us or what we are about.  Everyone suffers in these ways, no matter how much money or power they have.  No one is immune to pain and suffering, indeed we are all consigned to it at some point in our existence.

What, then, is the benefit of privilege?  What is it that we are looking for by seeking privileges or by our membership within elites?  What is it that we deny to others when we view others as corrupt and decadent elites unworthy of our respect and honor?  What we want and what we want to deny to others is significance and importance.  How does a life matter?  What does it take to be someone of importance?  It is by no means obvious how we will become people of importance in life.  One need not have a great deal of power to be people of importance.  There is a wise saying, “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world,” indicating that many anonymous women had a vital role in educating and preparing their sons (and daughters) for important deeds, and because of their influence over others, they had an importance far greater than has often been recognized.  It is not hard at all to undertake thought experiments that would show how it is that people could have a massive importance in the lives of others without realizing it.  For example, a smile given to a stranger who is suffering from depression could be recognized as something that gives one the encouragement to avoid suicide or self harm.  Knowing that one is being supported and cared for can prevent people from doing things in desperation that may have lasting and harmful consequences.  On the other hand, not all influence is positive.  People can be motivated by slights and ridicule to cultivate resentment and bitterness, to the cost of many lives and much destruction when that bitterness is combined with the power to avenge oneself on a harsh and unkind world.  Often it is not that our influence is particularly great for many people, but it is a part of a much larger influence that other people feel from the outside world.

Given that we do not like suffering and trouble, why is it that such things are inevitable from our existence?  To some extent, trouble is baked into our existence from several causes.  For one, physical existence itself involves the need to fulfill various needs—which can themselves cause trouble—as well as the reality of decay and death.  Also, the environment we live in is subject to all kinds of disasters and difficulties, plague and pestilence, and the like.  Similarly, we are all subject to this existence around other people who like ourselves have unequal amounts of good and evil within us, and who both knowingly and accidentally act in ways that irritate, provoke, and trouble us.  We are also plagued with troubles from our own longings, our own anxieties and fears, our own insecurities, especially if we have lived a life full of difficulty and problems.  Poopiness is hard-wired into every internal and external aspect of our existence, and so it is inevitable that life should be poopy for all of us.  There is simply no other way to live except being subject to these problems from time to time—or sometimes continually.

What is the good of poopiness, then?  What benefits does it provide us to live an existence full of trouble and difficulty?  While it is hard to answer such questions dogmatically, the wise person seeks to understand our existence by means of symbols and analogies where appropriate.  And here, the example of the butterfly is a particularly appropriate one.  For the first stage of a butterfly’s life, it is a larvae that eats leaves and lives what could easily be considered a grubby existence.  At some point, when it has eaten enough and is ready for its transformation, the grubby larva wraps itself in a tight cocoon and undergoes the transformation from a worm-like being to a butterfly.  Yet in order for that butterfly to be able to fly, it has to push its way through the cocoon, strengthening itself through the hard work and the trouble of breaking through the cocoon before it can live as a beautiful and elegant (and somewhat fragile) butterfly.  Similarly, if a student wishes to master material, he or she must solve a lot of problems that give one practice in how to answer questions correctly, disciplining how one is to think about subject matters, whether it involves mathematics, the understanding of words, map literacy, playing music, or developing the coordination necessary to succeed in athletic endeavor.  To be sure, if we enjoy what we are doing, we do not see the hard work as suffering, but it is the sort of trouble that strengthens us.  We cannot be strong without trouble, we cannot develop compassion and empathy without honing our ability to suffer from the evils of our existence.  So long as people exist who have within them some pull towards evil that remains imperfectly overcome and restrained, there will be evils that have to be endured and overcome.  No matter what kind of existence one has, we will have needs that others will need to fulfill, and the will of those around us will shape and color our existence, sometimes for good but sometimes also for evil.