At a talk yesterday, the speaker was discussing suffering and referred to a recent academic book that characterizes suffering as something evil that we should work to eliminate. The speaker qualified that the academic book said that some things that we consider to be suffering, such as a woman giving birth, aren't really suffering. In the back of the room, I was seized with uncontrollable laughter; I couldn't restrain it. Everyone turned to look, and then the other mothers in the room also shook their heads and one agreed with me out loud, "Childbirth is suffering."
I don't think I've ever before had such a physical response to an academic argument.
2 comments:
Ha! Was the speaker male? A bold thing to say with mothers in the room.
I thought you would appreciate this! He was male, but he wasn't advocating the idea, just describing someone else's idea, so my laughter wasn't directed at him. I'm sure the author of the book was also male...
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