Thread: Should we strive to suffer?

I think this ties in with one of the major themes in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. To oversimplify - the new recruits were eager to experience combat, because the vets who had been face to face with death seemed to be somehow better... like they've seen something that changed them and the newbies thought it made them super-cool. The ones who had seen real combat action had what they called the thousand yard stare... also known alternately as stone-eyed killers. The green recruits all wanted that. Well, by the end of the movie the ones left alive had it - but at what cost. Essentially it cost them their souls - their very humanity. They went in eager fresh-faced youths and came out of the meatgrinder hollow empty killers. Suffering changes you permanently, and what you lose can't be gained back.

Suffering is not something to seek out. It will find you, trust me. If it's little more than teen angst, then you're one of the lucky ones.