the problem here is our tendency to want to derive an "ought" from an "is". an example: if i were to kick you in the knee, you would feel pain. but it by no means follows that because the kick will cause a neurochemical pain response in your body, i ought to refrain from doing it! pain is not intrinsically bad. we just don't like it.
if every living creature that causes severe pain, irreparable physical damage, or death to another creature were suddenly punished as we punish each other, the food chain would quickly break down, and the planet would ultimately die.
if we instead just picked up our pillboxes and went out on a mission to heal all the sick critters and nurture all the unfit ones into adulthood so they could reproduce, not only would we cause a severe overpopulation problem, but we would put a really big wrench in the cogs of natural selection, again causing a complete breakdown of the system.
yet we tolerate these in the human sphere because we don't like pain. we don't like to be sad, or to see babies with tails, or to watch old people's joints get creaky. so we take the "is" of suffering and derive from it an "ought". then, fueled by the "ought", we work very hard to come up with a "can". but we don't stop there - we immediately whip that "can" into a "must". we go from "pain is" to "pain is evil and must be stopped", taking some giant leaps along the way.
what if i just stop with the "is"?
now, don't for one second assume i will practice what i preach. my pain is more real than anyone else's. it's the only pain i can feel. of course i'm going to do something about it. i can and i must! but other people's pain? that's their problem. i know they didn't choose to be born to crackhead parents, or to grow up in a country where 12 year olds get automatic rifles for their birthday. they didn't ask for that brain tumor, or for that gimpy leg that keeps them from holding down a job. but i didn't ask to be born a white, middle-class american male either.
it's all moot anyway. i'm 31 today. the universe is somewhere around 14 billion years old. if we set up a ratio, and imagine that one year represents the age of the universe, my then my portion of that year comes and goes in less time than it takes for me to blink my eyes...
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