To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th Century German Philosopher

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I was in the 6th grade the first time my dad took me to the James Lick Invitational Tournament. It was a neighborhood institution that kicked off the holiday season. The gym was packed. I was mesmerized watching players run back and forth in a choreographed ballet to the soundtrack of basketball shoes squeaking on the polished maple floor. Cheerleaders jumped, chanted, twirled, and fired up the crowd. The whole scene was intoxicating.

I’ll never forget the excitement I felt watching the winning team cut down the nets as a souvenir and seeing the all-tournament team clutching trophies at center court as the crowd cheered. From then on, one of my dreams was to play in the tournament. I looked forward to someday standing on a ladder to snip a little piece of the net as a champion and imagined holding an all-tournament player trophy of my own.

Six years later, I had my chance. As a senior at James Lick High School, I was co-captain and starting shooting guard for the varsity basketball team. We won our first game on opening night. I had a good game and earned a top 10 spot on the all-tournament vote tally. So far so good. My stomach churned with excitement and anticipation.

After the game, a bunch of students celebrated the victory at the neighborhood Round Table Pizza. My teammates and I walked into the place like conquering heroes. On the way home, my friend lost control of his car and crashed it head-on into a telephone pole. A few hours later, I was sitting in the Kaiser emergency room as a doctor stitched the deep cut on my forehead. The doctor said no to basketball for a week. 

It felt like my dog had died. I suffered sitting on the bench wearing jeans and a letterman jacket watching my team lose the next two games. Something that I had wanted since the 6th grade went up in smoke right before my eyes. There would be no nets to cut down, no all-tourney trophy to hold at mid-court, no cheering crowd. I replayed the car hitting that pole over and over in my mind. Little did I know that those two nights helplessly sitting on the bench wouldn’t be the last time my heart would ache.

Suffering is part of life. The central story of Christianity is the suffering Jesus endured at the hands of his enemies. Buddhists believe that suffering is a natural state of living. Nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that “to live is to suffer.” Ancient philosophers don’t have the last word on suffering. A couple of 20th-century lyricists come to mind. They put into simple words what highbrow intellectuals have been telling each other for thousands of years.

Jose Alfredo Jiménez, arguably Mexico’s greatest composer, wrote in the mid-20th century about emotional pain and suffering.

La vida no vale nada. Comienza siempre llorando. Y así llorando se acaba. (Life is worthless. It always starts out crying and, like that, it ends crying.) 

His massive body of work contains beautiful and elegant lyrics on life’s struggles. The concept of suffering consumed him so much that he ultimately drank himself to death. Cirrhosis of the liver took his life at 47 years old.

American country music icon Hank Williams also wrote haunting lyrics about pain and anguish. His music brings life to the agony of everyday living, loving and loss.

The silence of a falling star. Lights up a purple sky. And as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome, I could cry.

The official cause of the 29 year-old singer’s death was heart failure caused by the combination of alcohol and morphine, no doubt to soothe his pain.

Suffering is loosely defined as experiencing pain, sorrow, or hardship. It comes in all forms. According to Buddhists, there are generally three kinds of suffering: mental and emotional torment, physical pain, and death. Catholic tradition adds two more: humiliation and physical exhaustion. More than 4,000 years of philosophy, spirituality, and scholarship tell us that there’s no way to avoid one or more of these types of suffering on a daily basis.

When we think of suffering, big things come to mind: a fatal illness, death, a break-up, physical pain caused by a car accident, broken limbs, or migraine headaches. Suffering also comes in small packages. A flat tire, getting to work late, a gossipy co-worker, and an ankle sprain can all cause some level of mental torment, physical pain, and humiliation. 

Like most people, I always believed that life was all about having fun interrupted by a few hard times here and there. As a kid, I lived with both parents and five brothers and sisters in a safe environment, played baseball with neighborhood kids at the school down the street, and basketball on my driveway. We always had food to eat and had the same roof over our heads until we left the nest. It never dawned at me that life could be anything but wonderful with minor exceptions.

In high school, things got more complicated as the pendulum started to swing. It hurt when Dad furrowed his brow and shook his head in disappointment or Mom was upset at me for one thing or another. Focusing on academic performance, pursuing athletic accomplishments, and managing relationships began to eat up more of my time. Mental, emotional, and physical suffering followed. Nevertheless, suffering was still the exception, not the rule.

Life after high school was hard. I flunked out of San Jose State University after three semesters. Despite a sharp intellect and a solid work ethic, I embarked on a string of dead end jobs. I agonized over my circumstances knowing that my natural talents were not visible to my work mates or future employers. Burying myself into books had no practical purpose for the arc my life was taking. I grew frustrated and my anguish accelerated.

Suffering was the order of the day everyday. Drinking and carousing provided brief relief from the pain that racked my mind, body, and soul. Once the music stopped, the anguish resumed with more intensity. The physical and emotional hangovers lasted just long enough to jump back on the merry-go-round of suffering, shameless partying, and feeling sorry for myself. I finally overcame academic failure and forged a new direction.

Although ambition and promise were the new orders of the day, sorrow and pain still paved life’s path. The passing of Mom and sister Patty, job losses, election defeats, political failures, a massive heart attack, a horrific summer on life support, and a decade living with heart failure kept heartache chugging along. Marriage to Sandra, the birth of our girls, professional and some political success, and a heart transplant only served to soothe the ache of sustained suffering.

Since my heart transplant, I’ve developed a fascination with suffering and where it fits in our lives. The emotional and physical pain suffering inflicts on all of us make us naturally want to avoid it at all costs. The Spanish word for fun is diversión. While not a literal translation, the word has the same root as the English diversion. What are we  trying to divert ourselves from? Suffering, of course.

My heart failure and transplant journey have given me a new perspective on suffering and its assortment of so-called remedies. A brief scrolling through social media shows people “living their best lives” on vacation, at parties, and doing all kinds of fun stuff. The question is, Are those activities what life is all about or are they merely short-lived diversions from the daily drudgery of going to work, paying bills, fighting with family, raising kids, doing chores, and on and on?

That question has real life and death meaning for me. Living my best life was working long hours, drinking gallons of beer with a few shots of tequila here and there, and eating gobs  of fatty and unhealthy food. After a decade of heart failure and transplant, those diversions from suffering are no longer available to me if I want to continue living. I had to flip the script. I needed to find a way to live my best life without work, alcohol, food, or elaborate vacations every year, among a host of other temporary feel-good distractions.

I went back to the highbrow intellectual guys to find answers. Taking another page from the Nietzsche playbook, “out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” I’ve endured so much, especially during the past 14 years. Nevertheless, I’m still here. I’m mentally stronger with the character needed to face challenges head on. I have a better outlook on life and look forward to whatever each new day brings.

Nietzsche also told us that “to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” St. Paul the Apostle gave me a starting point. In his Letter to the Romans, he was trying to unify warring factions of the nascent church in Rome. As in any conflict, the differences in opinion among the groups caused much pain and suffering. St. Paul provided a recommendation to the Romans that has formed the foundation of my hope to flip the script on the never ending cycle of trying to avoid suffering through the pursuit of pleasure.

“Rejoice in your suffering,” St. Paul wrote in Roman 5:3-4, because it ultimately leads to hope. My heart failure journey came to an abrupt and blessed end on April 16, 2020. That’s when a new journey began. Suffering, real and imagined, old and new, continues to endure just as Nietzsche told us. “To live is to suffer.” My post-transplant story is all about rejoicing in my suffering “to find some meaning in it.”

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Note: The story continues next Wednesday.