Learning to Suffer
backpackinglight.com
backpackinglight.com
But for most of us suffering is not planned/predictable; it comes suddenly, unplanned and often is cyclic/wave-like pattern. For the case of cyclic pattern, telling oneself "suffering will eventually end" doesn't help that much because around the corner when it ends, looms the next batch of suffering again.
This is why "suffering will eventually end" sounds like a nice comforting advice to new parents/student/employee but is a terrible advice to someone that is going in-and-out of depression, in a life crisis, etc.
But another mechanism is meta. One of the worst elements of depression is the belief, "I feel terrible all the time for no reason (or for big intractable reasons), and I always will." This probably isn't true. You feel terrible sometimes, for specific reasons you can identify and work on. You also feel okay sometimes. The trick is to notice this. CBT putting it in your face on a regular basis can force an update to your model of feeling. Then when a negative emotion comes, it doesn't have a big powerful story about helplessness and permanence to interact with. The story was responsible for most of the suffering. Without it, the emotion passes in less time and with less intensity.
The waves roll in and then collapse. Tides change, moon phase changes, weather changes, seasons change. You don't have to believe the whole thing is going to stop to appreciate that conditions will be favorable again.
Nevertheless, I think there's another dimension to the ability to endure. 2 summers ago, I hiked the 230 mile Cape Wrath Trail in the Scottish Highlands with my brother. I didn't have any of the physical issues that the author described (despite almost endless wet conditions underfoot and frequently from above too). I had trained for and finished an extremely hard 50km trail race in the Colorado Rockies 2 weeks before the hike started, and was in excellent shape even before we started.
Nevertheless, it was only my brother's inability to even imagine quitting that got me to the end. I was variously bored, confused about the why, and/or simply willing to call it quits. I wasn't in pain, I didn't dislike walking all day with an insanely heavy pack on, I hadn't even minded a 30' fall down a mountain. But it still took everything I had, plus more from my brother, to get me to want to keep going.
People who can do that easily have my respect, admiration and envy (like ... my wife!)
Everyone has bad days in a Grand Tour stage race.
They have to hide that from each other and themselves or their rivals will try to turn the screw just a bit further whilst pretending they have loads left in the tank.
It seems crazy to me, to push through pain so bad it "makes you chest constrict", likely coming from bone as opposed to soft tissue, and in an area (foot) where long term damage would be very bad. I've pushed through minor cases of shin splints and tendonitis but what the author describes sounds irresponsible to me?
So I'm wondering if I'm too wimpy or if the author is irresponsible?
I've run ultras before and not long ago crossed the Alps on foot with nothing but a tent and good cheer.
The thing that would always make me stop is issues with slow-tissue (bones, joints etc). Not because "I feel this is the right think to do", but my body isn't leaving me any other choice. Ofc assuming the decision to stop or keep going isn't influenced by peer pressure.
I've once come home with bleeding nipples (chafed by a new white Asics running top) so badly that it looked like I had been shot on the trail and the bleeding wouldn't even stop in the shower. It was pain far worse than a sprained ankle or broken leg.
In your analogy I'd consider a sprained ankle "bad" pain while the chafed nips "good pain". Severity of pain might not be the most reliable indicator in mid-range pain levels. But it's always reliable when it dominates over a strong will. Basically you always know when you're _done_. Peer pressure is a dangerous cloud in judgement here which is why I hate doing these things competitively or with friends (one always ends up the sparing partner of the other).
Also "the wall" just means you didn't fuel correctly and now feel really tired/weak/etc. It completely sucks to be sure, but it's a "body" feeling, and not a "knee" or "hamstring" feeling at a specific part of your body.
Both may be true, but pushing though because it feels ok in the morning ala the author is crazy
"When I rest I feel utterly lifeless except that my throat burns when I draw breath...I can scarcely go on. No despair, no happiness, no anxiety. I have not lost the mastery of my feelings, there are actually no more feelings. I consist only of will."
When it comes to exercise avoid the three Ts. Too much, Too soon, Too fast.
> I’d have stopped if I felt like I was truly injured
I think what the author is talking about is that we start as children from a position of trusting discomfort unconditionally. It distresses us, and we avoid it. Through experience, we learn that that the distress that many types of discomfort causes us is disproportionate, and we start to react to it differently. We even learn to associate certain types of discomfort with the reward of hard work. If life doesn't force these experiences upon us, we have to get them by choice, or else our lives can end up overly constrained by discomfort that we never learned to put into context.
But you're right as well. In the gym, people first learn what their bodies can do when they use emotion and bravado to unlock levels of effort and discomfort they had never experienced before. As they gain that ability, they also learn to moderate it, to use it wisely in the context of how their body responds to what they're doing with it. The first without the second is dangerous, and the second without the first is constricting.
Learning to manage it is truly an art. If you're too conservative you leave a lot on the table. Being too aggressive absolutely will get you injured.
The one consistent thing though that research shows is that if you are considtently doing workouts that you would rate as a 10/10 on your own internal uncalibrated scale, you are at much higher risk for injury.
The art of knowing how hard to push yourself isn't something that people just intuitively know. It takes experience of failing in both directions to nail the sweet spot. It's not impossible to learn, but I agree that most athletes don't even have it nailed. Thats one of the things a good coach is for.
As a former college athlete I can't agree with you. It's nearly impossible to tell when you are pushing yourself too hard and when you are just pushing yourself.
The first workout of the year feels like you will die. A few weeks later that same workout feels like a warm up. Pain is always involved.
Either way, there's no need to skip training for a year and then hit the gym in one go (too much, too soon)
I know plenty of people who I have tried to train and work with who would give up on the first bead of sweat.
In training, absolutely. If something doesn't feel right, back off, let your body recover.
But during events? Whether it's the big through-hike or that marathon or the ironman, you need the ability to push past the pain and suffering, and learn that your body is better than you think at fixing itself. It's effectively impossible to injure yourself in a permanent way, I promise you.
Few marathon runners will run a full marathon during training, even at slower paces. Before I ran my first one, the longest training run I ever did was about 35km, with most runs below 25 (for comparison, a marathon is 42.2km). The sheer amount of suffering you'll endure during those last 7.2km is probably the worst you'll ever feel in your life, but slowing to a walk or dropping out at that point is ridiculous.
Like the author said, having the mental fortitude to tough it out when the going gets tough is what separates athletes from wannabes -- and knowing the difference between "this is just a training run" and "this is the event I've been preparing for over the last 12 months" is key.
Pain should be a signal to consider carefully what you are doing.
I consider myself reasonably fit, but I’m not sure any of the activities I do strictly require physical pain. Soreness? Fatigue? Sure. But rarely pain, unless I’ve made a mistake.
A big part of this is that people inexperienced with pushing themselves will mistake the soreness and fatigue for pain and quit. It's easy for you to say this because you claim to be "fairly fit". You have experience beyond average (at least in the US).
Also, if you are overweight, did not exercised for long, but are ambitious, that is the prime situation where it is easy to cause yourself an injury. Fairly fit means that your body is adjusted exercise at least somewhat and joints and such can withstand.
I still have that pain almost a year later, multiple MRIs and orthopedics have been unsuccessful in finding out what it is. I'm only now able to run very short (2.5km) distances. Pushing yourself to ignore pain is very possible and can be very dangerous.
When I realized how stupid the mindset is and how deep in me that mindset was, it was too late.
Somewhat related, but my view of suffering really changed after reading "Man's Search for Meaning".
* I've only had to set a broken limb (arm) once in the backcountry. In that case we distributed that person's gear and spent three days getting out. On a different trip: very painful/bloody feet; luckily we were only about five miles from our destination so we took turns helping the victim walk out under his own power.
I agree with your point of view on hikes. It's a mind game.
But that's not the whole story. For some people, pain doesn't end. Pain is every day, and you get nothing in exchange. No trees, no fresh air, just pain.
I could go on, lay out the difference between pain and the resulting mental suffering. While you can't always avoid the former, the latter is up to you. But that's a whole other story.
Congrats on your achievements. Man, I wish I could go back hiking. You learned how to conquer your pain, may it be inconsequential and temporary. Bear in mind that, sometimes, it has long term (everlasting?) consequences. And that makes it completely different.
Avoid consequences. Really, do.
I had a friend that was going through painful knee surgery, and he was very optimistic. "Im good at enduring hard times" he said. I warned him to prepare for the worst, to be ready to reach out to friends if depression hits. He shook it of. But just a few months later, there he was. For the first time in his life, he was depressed. He could endure terrible pain for several hours. But when the pain just never ever goes away, when you get zero time to recover, it grinds you down.
Never ever risk permanent pain. It is a worse hell than you can imagine, if you've never been there.
The imagery includes stories of Hinault riding through a snow-storm with frostbite.
Or Pantani fighting his inner daemons (a battle he sadly later lost) to summit a mountain with his arms held wide like “Christ on the cross”.
The great Irish rider Sean Kelly once pulled down his shorts to show a journalist a saddle sore the size of an egg when asked why he wasn’t as good as expected.
I often speculated if it’s a coincidence that Cycling as a sport is traditionally most popular in catholic countries such as Italy, Spain, France and Belgium.
For Joe Simpson, or say Earnest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic, these are stories where something went wrong and they were able to show heroic Endurance* just to survives.
In professional Cycling, it's slightly different, temptation is a factor.
You can stop at any time and you'll be picked up by the warm Broom Wagon or team cars that follows the race.
It would be so easy to give in to the devil on your shoulder offering you the easy way out...
Even giving in to that weakness is venerated by numerous photographs of weeping riders by the side of the road. Cycling fans seem to respond to a loser's suffering, as we recognise shared weakness.
That story of temptation seems to chime with stories of martyrs and saints.
Who knows though, like I said it's just a hypothesis.
* Sorry, terrible pun.
The issue is when it becomes addictive and it is not good suffering anymore, but rather deliberate destruction of body with long term consequences.
You'll feel aches, pains, hunger, technical problems, weather, nagging injuries ... yet the only thing you can do is keep going. There's an obvious tension between what your body is telling you ("Hey slow down and rest. You're not running from a predator. You've got plenty of food. There's pizza and beer at home. Why are you doing this?") and your athletic goals.
Success is all about planning, preparing, pacing to avoid the obvious causes of suffering for as long as possible. Then when fatigue inevitably hits, recognizing those mental states for what they are: a distraction. Trust your preparation and continue to focus on the path ahead. It starts to sound very much like meditation.
There's a interesting theory in exercise physiology called the "Central governor" - your brain unconsciously monitors signals throughout the body and if it detects anything that could potentially damage vital systems, activity will be shut down directly _causing_ what we experience as fatigue. I find it fascinating that the limits of human endurance could based on our brain's unconscious decision making ability. I wonder if training (in the sports sense) is similar to training a neural network - feed a variety of inputs about physical conditions, continually tune predictions about which signals are safe vs unsafe for the vital organs. IOW "learning to suffer" might be a physical process by which we improve athletic performance through optimizing our fatigue calculations.
> When we each learned to suffer, we also learned that the suffering eventually ends
Oh that that were true!
I think it's a bit naive to call endurance suffering. I get that it might be nice to be able to experience endurance in a pure/controlled enough form where it can be retroactively framed as a positive experience / accepted as a nurturing challenge, but...
There may be a difference in kind between sport and what I deal with but I gotta tell ya, I’ve yet to see anyone who can actually see the difference.
"We're lucky to be able to electively suffer like this"
First heard about types of fun from an article posted here - I think it was this one https://www.tetongravity.com/story/culture/the-three-and-a-h...
Edit: put type 3 at first but on second thought it’s type 2
It’s a useful heuristic.
"fun" (Noun, uncountable):
- amusement, enjoyment or pleasure
- playful, often noisy, activity.
Thru-hikers are akin to long distance runners.(For some of them) Their goal is to brag about how many miles they walked and how grueling it was, and that's exactly what this author does.
I have backpacked for close to 50 years now and there are a few types of hikers I've run across that have sucked up my time or just been obnoxious to meet on the trails and by far thru-hikers are likely to be obnoxious.
I've had them hike into my camp at night, tell me this is where they've planned to setup for the night, and then demand I give them water because they ran out, and ask for supplies like bandages, neosporin, aspirin, tylenol, and even food. I have cut trips short because of that.
It happened so often I quit using hiking trails and that I can kind of thank them for because I'd been leery of bushwhacking far off trail and getting lost.
I had to sharpen my mapping skills and learn how to remember how to get back to my starting point. That was actually pretty easy once I put it in practice and now with a topo map and compass I always know where I am so I can wander aimlessly in our forests for days, which are the same forests the author talks about blistering her feet.
I've been hiking here for over 30 years and never blistered my feet. And I wouldn't consider myself to be anything but stupid if I did.
Had she taken the time to get off trail and explore the "hills and hollers" here she could have wrote about the stunning beauty everywhere you go no matter what direction you take.
Instead she told everyone how miserable it was but she was tough enough to take it and you should learn how to "suffer" too.
If you really want to learn how to suffer come here and hike those trails in the summer and don't use any bug repellent. The ticks and chiggers will give you a serious lesson in suffering and it'll last at least a couple weeks after you've left.
I'm wondering if I should "tough it out" and suffer through the pain until the molar completely dies and crumbles away? The process has already started and the tooth is a jagged mess. Will the pain then stop or will my mouth become infected?
I work at a homeless shelter and they suffer through toothaches, often without medication of any kind. At least I can take ibuprofen when the pain gets too much.
Is suffering the dentist of the homeless?
Update: Thanks for the comments, they are helpful. I will make a dentist appointment in the morning.
The infection can cause sepsis. You could lose a chunk of your jaw. You can literally die from dental infections.
Don't be like me. My wisdom teeth pushed my teeth totally out of alignment. The headaches have been unbearable at times. I've had infections come and go.
It's been 15 years. I could have spent $3k 15 years ago to enjoy the following 15 years a lot more. What the hell was I thinking?
Well, I was thinking sort of like you are now. If you can afford to fix it, it's worth every penny.
Anecdote: when I was a kid, I used to visit a dentist who would always "find" 5-6 cavities every year. After a few years my parents took me for a second opinion elsewhere, and it turned out those cavities weren't really there. Ever since then, I've somewhat distrusted dentists... When I was in my early teens, I was told I needed braces. I declined, and two decades later, my teeth look straight and are fine. In my late teens I was told I needed my wisdom teeth extracted... I declined, and same as before, my teeth are fine now almost 20 years later.
My personal stance now is: avoid processed sugar (for teeth and health in general), brush your teeth, and go to the dentist if something hurts and don't go away within a few weeks. Otherwise dentistry is pretty scammy as a whole.
Sadly yes, dentistry has extremely poor, or rather non existant oversight. The answer however is to extremely carefully select your dentist, and get second opinions. Not to ignore dentistry.
Suffering, in and of itself, isn't a skill. You will endure iff you want to endure. That is, if the perceived benefits of enduring outweigh the pain.
I've suffered through multi-week hikes with blisters and a too-heavy pack because I loved the views, the remoteness, the self-reliance and asceticism. And also because there were no good alternatives, because bailing midway would have been a different kind of emotional and logistical pain.
I've also bailed on things. Not a ton of them but always with good reason. I quit a job I hated after trying to suck it up for too long. I quit my college sports team after barely getting played for two years. I left a long-term relationship when I realized my partner wasn't treating me well.
I don't think of those bails as failures. They just didn't work out, and I'm happier without those things in my life. In fact I'm proud of myself for putting aside my pride and fear of being a 'quitter' in order to pull the plug on them. The hikes I suffered through aren't successes, either. With experience I've gotten better at preparing and packing, so even longer and more challenging hikes are easier for me now. Better views and more comfort is where it's at. No need to suffer just for the sake of suffering.
This is what gets me through marathons. You hit the real hard part around mile 20 and fuck it, running another 6 is easier than going back the other way. Faster you run faster you’re done.
I agree that suffering for its own sake probably isn’t worth it, but if you want to run faster/farther, getting used to suffering will let you improve.
Don’t over train, but don’t always listen when your body wants to stop, unless it’s joint pain :)
For people who enjoy the suffering itself; well that’s a different hobby than running, and I won’t judge.
I liked the original quote up top:
> That is, if the perceived benefits of enduring outweigh the pain.
Then again, I just looked up the actual definition for "suffering" and it's much less dramatic then what I associate with suffering. Simply "to submit to or be forced to endure" which, in that sense, I'd agree.
To be pedantic, you get faster by running more volume. To do that, you have to make most of it easy. Even when I'm hammering out 50+ miles and 2+ quality runs in the weeks before a race, I'm only truly suffering for about 30 minutes each week. Even threshold work rarely crosses the line into real suffering.
I don't buy the narrative that ultra endurance running is some kind of noble self inflicted torture. Most of the experience is just plain fun. That's why I do it.
So, is there a skill behind it? Sort of.
- mental fortitude and awareness to squeeze the juice when you are absolutely exhausted are skills. I realized this when I was winded, my muscles were sore, and I could feel the minute shifts in load on my back during forced marches. I learned to listen to my body and beg the question, "Am I fooling myself into being done, or am I hurt?" One time I answered that question with the latter, the rest of the time I would stare ahead, hum (or sing) something, mind my posture, snack, and sip water. Before I knew it, my time would slip by. This skill progressed over time.
- commitment and planning are skills and one precipitates the other. Some folks wanted to do the bare minimum and expected maximal results. I was not an infantryman, but I snagged someone who had been on more deployments than I had (that was an infantryman) and said, "Show me". He showed me how to align weight distribution for different terrain, what kinds of socks to wear when, how to dress for hikes, what to look for in boots, where to store snacks, how to walk, how to configure my plate carrier, how much water to carry per mile, etc... When I attempted to pass this knowledge on, some listened and some didn't.
Is there a manual?
So Nike probably got it close ("Just do it."), but I think a more accurate slogan is "Don't think about it beforehand--just do it, y'know, for a little while, unless it hurts really bad, in which case you should stop doing it and consider seeking medical attention."
Suffering sucks. It sucks especially when there's nobody to see/tell about it/nobody cares, no prestige, or sense of moral worth to be derived from it. If I jog by myself, I'm a nobody. If I jog on a team I'm part of a story. I think this is why jogging around the neighborhood doesn't stick. It just sucks, all by itself, and you may even get heckled for it. Nobody cares, and if they do it's for the wrong reasons. By myself I'm not contributing to anything besides my ego.
I think my class bias shows clearly here. This middle-class type of suffering is voluntary...
I was going to write more, but that's all I have for now.
one interesting thing i've found is that the higher the suffering, the more fondly i look back at the event/time period and overcoming it. the inverse also seems weakly true - i'm not very proud of periods i've spent coasting in life.
second, it seems to create a fraternizing effect - i seem to also recall fondly the people with whom i shared the suffering. perhaps this explains some of the military people reflecting back fondly on times of truly intense suffering.
For example, the 24 hour flight to your holiday destination will compress into a very short unimportant memory where the holiday itself will recall as if it were a much longer period of time than it was.
Get some proper hiking boots!
Now, back in the days when I was a decent recreational runner, there was seldom a race in which I didn't wonder, about 2/3 of the way through, what in the world had caused me to sign up, and didn't think that I really shouldn't do this again. I'm not really sure what learning was involved there--it was mostly I think stubbornness, being determined that I was going to have run part of the race and suffered the discomfort without finishing.
A cold, rainy day where you don't have enough layers, all your clothes are wet, and it's another 9 miles through mud and mountains to the nearest shelter is suffering and downright scary.
Looking up a 3000 foot rock scramble with a heavy pack when you've already covered too many miles and you're hungry is suffering.
But -- I don't think it's a good idea to ignore injury. That isn't the "Good" kind of suffering. If your skin is coming off your feet or your knees are swelling like crazy.. pushing through is kind of dumb.
This is nothing special, however. Every student learns how to suffer too.
If you give up, you don't have a chance.
If you always make the same errors, you don't have a chance either.
Or something like that. I wish I could find the quote.
We had traded our slightly too small aluminium canoe for a much too big
dugout. In this vessel carved from a single tree, seventeen Indians at one
time travelled with us. With all their baggage added to ours and everyone
aboard, the vast canoe still looked rather empty. Portaging it, this time
with only four or five Indians to help, over half a mile of boulders beside
a large waterfall was depressing to contemplate. It meant placing logs
across the path of the canoe and hauling it, inch by inch, in the merciless
sun, slipping inevitably into the crevices between the boulders whenever
the canoe pivoted out of control and scraping one's shins, ankles and
whatever else one landed on against the granite. We had done the portage
before with the small canoe, and the two Italians and I, knowing what lay
ahead, spent several days dreading the hard work and pain. On the day lye
arrived at Arepuchi Falls we were primed to suffer and started off
grimfaced and hating every moment, to drag the thing over the rocks.
When it swung sideways, so heavy was the rogue pirogue, it several times
pinned one of us to the burning rock until the others could move it off. A
quarter of the way across all ankles were bleeding. Partly by way of
begging off for a minute, I jumped up on a high rock to photograph the
scene. From my vantage point and momentary dis-involvement, I noticed a
most interesting fact. Here before me were several men engaged in a single
task. Two, the Italians, were tense, frowning, losing their tempers at
everything and swearing non-stop in the distinctive manner of the Tuscan.
The rest, Indians, were having a fine time. They were laughing at the
unwieldiness of the canoe, making a game of the battle: they relaxed
between pushes, laughing at their own scrapes and were especially amused
when the canoe, as it wobbled forward, pinned one, then another, underneath
it. The fellow held barebacked against the scorching granite, when he could
breathe again, invariably laughed the loudest, enjoying his relief.
All were doing the same work; all were experiencing strain and pain. There
was no difference in our situations except that we had been conditioned by
our culture to believe that such a combination of circumstances constituted
an unquestionable low on the scale of well-being and were quite unaware
that we had any option in the matter.
The Indians, on the other hand, equally unconscious of making a choice,
were in a particularly merry state of mind, revelling in the camaraderie;
and, of course, they had had no long build-up of dread to mar the preceding
days. Each forward move was for them a little victory. As I finished
photographing and rejoined the team, I opted out of the civilized choice
and enjoyed, quite genuinely, the rest of the portage. Even the barks and
bruises I sustained were reduced with remarkable ease to nothing more
significant than what they indeed were: small hurts which would soon heal
and which required neither an unpleasant emotional reaction, such as anger,
self pity or resentment, nor anxiety at how many more there might be before
the end of the haul. On the contrary, I found myself appreciative of my
excellently designed body, which would patch itself up with no instructions
or decisions from me.As to why it's here, HN readers seem to like topics related to stoicism and perseverance.
The hike that the author discusses is just a nature walk with poor footwear. I did St. Olav's way back in 2019. There is no sanctity in hiking. It's just a walk and you either are prepared or aren't.
The idea that hiking is "just walking" because for you it was, is similarly absurd. With elevation changes, gear on your back (10-40lbs depending on how lightweight you go, easier to be lighter than when I started with metal-framed packs), significant distances per day, potential time constraints requiring longer daily distances, you have similar "heavy stressors" in hiking.