I always bring up Darwin when thinking such thoughts. Rich guy as well, I think his father was a businessman. But the thing about Darwin is he articulated just how cruel nature can be while being a victim himself. Something near half his kids died.
"For over forty years Darwin suffered intermittently from various combinations of symptoms such as: malaise, vertigo, dizziness, muscle spasms and tremors, vomiting, cramps and colics, bloating and nocturnal intestinal gas, headaches, alterations of vision, severe tiredness, nervous exhaustion, dyspnea, skin problems such as blisters all over the scalp and eczema, crying, anxiety, sensation of impending death and loss of consciousness, fainting, tachycardia, insomnia, tinnitus, and depression."
The time integral of his suffering must be enormous. I'm a little horrified that a man so famous can suffer so much, and yet almost no one knows about it. They remember him for his achievements; but the countless days he spent in pain are forgotten.
First I saw their eggs, and I thought they were white blood cells. There were millions of them, but my WBC counts came back low. After a few months I finally saw one of the little monsters. I sent photos to my doctors and they ignored them. Finally, I got a video call with a doctor, went through the whole procedure with them and found one on the call. This got their attention, but they couldn’t re-order labs because they had already come back negative. The proper tests/treatment are very specific and expensive in the US, nearly impossible to get approved by insurance, although they are given for free in the third world.
This stuff happens. Native people generally develop some form of neonatal immunity or tolerance. Travelers mostly stay safe in leisure travel, but some studies show it to be less rare than expected. For me it took a combination of an untreated flesh wound, and a flood of contaminated water.
I’m reminded of the blood parasites support group in Fight Club. I can’t even begin to tell you how much of my life I’ve lost to this.
The article you link to also mentions that Darwin himself found upsides to his condition, which implies that the integral of the suffering (now using the emotionally-valenced definition of the word) may not have been of the magnitude you imagine, nor even necessarily negative.
On a related and curious note, I have found fainting to be one of the most pleasurable experiences.
Nature isn't cruel. It's indifferent which can seem cruel at times.