This is a short transcript excerpt from Connor Beaton's YouTube talk "The Last Two Pillars of Manhood," specifically the Pillar Four segment. Beaton argues that meaning is not found in comfort or materialism but through chosen suffering: purpose organizes pain and men should ask whether pursuits are "worthy of my life force" rather than merely following feelings. He invokes Dostoevsky to support the claim that men prefer suffering with meaning over comfortable purposelessness.
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Pillar number four. It's really about how comfort, not meaning. Meaning will not be found in comfort, and meaning is actually found through choosing suffering. And this is paradoxical in nature. To again, what modernity, what materialism will tell you, what modernity and materialism are really selling is that in comfort there's meaning, in comfort there's safety, in comfort there's purpose, in pleasure there's fulfillment. But if you look at the great philosophers and let's talk about Dostoevsky for a moment, he really showed that men would rather suffer with meaning than live comfortably without it. I would rather have meaning coupled with suffering, which is necessary. If you want to develop meaning in your life, you are going to have to work for it in a way that creates suffering. The modern man is largely, I think, not depressed because life is hard. They are depressed because their suffering has no aim and there's no meaning involved in it. And lastly, stop asking, how do I feel about this? And start asking yourself, is this worthy of my life force? Is this worthy of me giving my life to it? Is this worthy of me giving my vitality and my energy to it? Purpose really organizes pain. If you are in pain, you are not sure what to do with it. Begin the process of allocating some purpose to the pain that you're carrying and have been given that can be a purpose for a period of time. Doing this type of work gives many men, gave me a deep and profound sense of purpose.
