Is suffering like shit?
People seem to find suffering deep. Serious writings explore the experiences of all manner of misfortunes, and the nuances of trauma and torment involved. It’s hard to write an essay about a really good holiday that seems as profound as an essay about a really unjust abuse. A dark past can be plumbed for all manner of meaning, whereas a slew of happy years is boring and empty, unless perhaps they are too happy and suggest something dark below the surface. (More thoughts in the vicinity of this here.)
I wonder if one day suffering will be so avoidable that the myriad hurts of present-day existence will seem to future people like the problem of excrement getting on everything. Presumably a real issue in 1100 AD, but now irrelevant, unrelatable, decidedly not fascinating or in need of deep analysis.
Good point. I blame therapy culture. As a screenwriter I'm finding the trauma story to be oppressively dominant right now, more so than at the beginning of my career. If your character is brave than they must, absolutely must, have some sort of trauma that they need to "face." Even if your protagonist is about to suffer a lot--survive a tsunami, fight a monster, go to war--they must also have some sort of past issue that comes to a head right when the current Big Bad is confronting them.
Also, the only way popular culture can portray functional families is as freaks. The Adams Family, the Coneheads (to give away my age). These are aliens and monsters so it's okay to show them being really nice, accepting and loving with each other.
Okay, rant over.
Probably arises from Christianity originally, honestly.