“Unplanned” or “unlucky” marriages don’t exist, and in the pages of this book it will be revealed how any marriage can be transformed into a happy or, at the very least, peaceful and comfortable marriage. But don’t rush to thumb through the pages in search of this information; our recipes work only if you study the contents of each chapter attentively and in their proper order.
Familial disarray is not the only reason for suffering. People suffer from injustice and the knowledge of their inability to combat that injustice, from fear of impending old age and from poverty, from pain after the loss of loved ones, from creative failure, and from loneliness and disease…
While researching the boundless theme of “Human Suffering,” we found deeply unhappy people in all historical eras and in all circles of society. Torturous suffering affects not only average people, but also kings, presidents of countries and corporations, top models, and the stars of Hollywood and show business.
The dream of many young women to be a supermodel seems appealing on the glossy covers of magazines. But the famous German beauty Claudia Schiffer revealed what goes on “behind the covers” in her interview for the magazine Fivetonine: “Top-models are going extinct like mammoths, their lives are completely thrown into disarray, they turn to alcohol, debauchery and narcotics” [4].
It also turns out that almost all famous artists and wealthy people are unhappy.
Nikolai Gogol (1809—1852), the famous Russian prose writer and dramatist, wrote in a letter to his friend: “Hanging or drowning appear to me as medicine or relief.”
Lev Tolstoy (1828—1910), the great Russian writer, author of novels known around the world such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, admitted in a letter in 1878:
“I am hiding the rope in order to stop me from hanging myself from the rafters in my room at night when I’m alone. I don’t go hunting anymore, so as to avoid the temptation to shoot myself. It seems to me that my life has been a stupid farce.”
Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), a French writer, complained in his journal: “Everything seems loathsome to me. I would hang myself with joy, but only pride prevents me…” [5].
Flaubert kept himself from suicide, but many of his famed peers were unable to do the same.
In the eyes of many readers the great American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961) resembled the hero of his well-known story “The Old Man and the Sea,” whose slogan was “Do not surrender under any circumstances!” He was a Nobel laureate, succesful fisherman, first-class hunter, frequenter of pubs – in general, a real man: smart, strong and warmhearted. But this was all merely a mask, behind which hid a deeply suffering soul.
Hemingway repeatedly attempted to kill himself. Even on the way to the clinic, where he planned to get help for his depression, Hemingway tried to throw himself from an airplane, and then on the ground, after landing he tried to kill himself on the blades of a spinning propeller. Having returned home after treatment, Hemingway all the same went through with what he had earlier attempted and ended up shooting himself with his favorite rifle on July 2, 1961.
The writer’s granddaughter, the beautiful Margaux, was at one time the highest paid model in America and then a successful actress; but she too could not escape depression, fell into alcoholism and marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of her grandfather’s death in a most peculiar way, by ending her own life.
The tragic story of Hemingway immediately calls to mind the tragedy of another great American author, Jack London (1876—1916), who killed himself as the result of prolonged depression, exacerbated by alcoholism.
London also extolled the will to live; the heroes of his novels and stories, who were able to overcome any difficulty, became images of strength and masculinity for generations of readers around the world. At first the author himself resembled his heroes, enduring many hardships and blows of fate. On the surface he always appeared as a cheerful, energetic, strong-willed man and displayed unbelievable work ethic; in the course of fifteen years, he wrote so much that the full collection of his works constituted forty volumes!
But he too lived behind a mask his entire life, even suffering from depression in his youth.
Since childhood Jack had been subject to bouts of depression, but none of his many friends and comrades knew of this. He was always filled with barely contained energy and life, smiling and supporting others even in the most difficult moments of his life. At the age of 37, London became the highest paid author in the world and owner of an enormous tract of land, on which were planted 140,000 eucalyptus trees.
The great author was well acquainted with the many sides of life, but that which he saw during his time on earth stirred up in him first ennui, then deep depression. London began to drink, which was the beginning of the end. At first he became disillusioned with the people around him, then with his beloved eucalyptus trees and then with literature itself. Having driven himself into a corner Jack London ended his life by drinking a fatal dose of poison on November 22, 1916.
Noted Japanese writers, too, are not set apart by their optimism.
Mishima Yukio (1925—1970), the most famous Japanese writer of the twentieth century, killed himself by committing seppuku.
Kawabata Yasunari (1899—1972), Nobel laureate, killed himself by releasing poisonous gas into his study.
This list could go on much further. Just a roster of famous people who have commited suicide would take up dozens of pages.
There are those who claim that great and wealthy people simply “act out of boredom,” that if they needed to think more about their immediate needs they wouldn’t have time to fall into such deep suffering. However, further down the social ladder one finds that ordinary people do not suffer any less than kings, top models and creative geniuses. The only difference between the first and the second is that the tragedies of each star comprise a story in and of themselves, sufficient for a novel or loud headlines in the media, whereas the suffering of billions of average people is simply a statistic for sociologists.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), stress and depression have become an epidemic which affects all of humanity. The world has seen sharp increases in suicide rates: according to the WHO, around a million people commit suicide each year (that is, one suicide every forty seconds). The number of people who commit suicide surpasses the number who are killed by war or crime. In China alone the number of suicides yearly exceeds 250,000 people.
When researching the theme of “suffering” the thought arises that our entire planet is a stronghold of evil and unhappiness, and that in their lives on Earth people are consigned to suffer from the start. Just such a point of view received wide acceptance during the fifth century, when St. Augustine (354—430) put forth the idea of the “original sin,” committed by Adam and Eve in paradise. In the “Epistle from the Patriarchs of the Eastern-Catholic Church on the Orthodox Faith,” (1723) the Christian Patriarchs stated “It is our belief, that the first man created by God fell from grace when, having heeded the treacherous advice of the serpent, he broke God’s commandment, and that from this the original sin flowed out into all man’s descendents, so that not one person, born into flesh, would be free from that burden and all would feel the consequences of the fall in their earthly lives… For their infraction,