Why Can’t Human Beings Live Without Suffering?

A Reflection on Modern Mental Suffering and the Way We Live

Seungwon An · Founder, Wonbrand · May 13, 2026

1. The Hurting People Who Appear on the Screen

These days, whenever I look at a screen, I keep encountering the same strange scene.

While scrolling through social media, reading YouTube comments, or moving through short videos, I see too many young people saying that their minds are exhausted. Some are in their teens, some in their twenties, some in their thirties. They are people who are only just beginning to shape their own lives. Yet they speak so often of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, ADHD, helplessness, psychiatry, counseling, hospitals.

In the past, these words did not surface so easily. If someone said they were receiving psychiatric care, people did not first think of illness. They thought of someone who had “gone mad,” someone strange, someone not to get too close to. That gaze came first. A person whose mind was hurting was treated less like a sick person and more like someone pushed outside society.

Now it is different. The phrase “I see a psychiatrist” has entered ordinary conversation. Some people speak of their diagnosis almost like a self-introduction. Some do not hide the fact that they are receiving counseling. Words that once would have been concealed now rise directly onto the screen.

At first, the scene felt unfamiliar. Why are there so many now? Are this many people really in pain? Or has pain that used to be invisible only now begun to show itself?

The first feeling I had when I saw that scene was not blame. It was not a desire to push them away as strange. It was closer to sorrow.

If a society is making this many young people speak their pain aloud, then something inside that society has changed.

I wanted to know what that change was.

2. An Age That Looks Weaker

From the outside, the answer seems easy.

Maybe people today have become weaker.

The past was far harsher. Even making a living was difficult. People used their bodies every day, supported families, had less access to hospitals, and had little room to say that their minds were struggling. They were forced into those conditions. There were few choices and nowhere to retreat. By enduring like that, their bodies and minds may have toughened.

Today is different. There is more food, more information, hospitals, and language for speaking about mental suffering. Compared with the past, many things have clearly improved. Yet many people still say they are struggling. So at first, it can look this way.

Have we become weaker amid abundance?

Are people shaken by smaller pains because they grew up receiving fewer wounds?

That thought can arise. I do not want to avoid that question. A person can become stronger or weaker depending on the environment they are placed in. It is not strange to say that someone who grew up without friction may shake more easily when a greater friction arrives.

But stopping there is too easy.

The pain of the past may have made people strong. But whether that pain was good is an entirely different question. To look at an age when it was hard to eat, when the body wore down, when the mind was pressed down, and when no one could say they were hurting, and simply say, “People were stronger then,” is too crude.

Human beings do not die easily. They endure longer than expected. Tell them to bear it, and they bear it. Tell them to endure, and they endure. Even after collapsing, they rise again. Human beings are not so fragile.

But the fact that a person endured does not mean that life was good.

People live even in very bad environments. They harden themselves to fit those environments, learn to tolerate pain, and learn to close their own hearts. But that does not mean it is the best way for a human being to live. Surviving and living well are different.

So the question changes again.

Have modern people truly become weaker?

Or has the shape of pain changed?

3. Why Do We Shake More When Life Has Become More Abundant?

There are many ways in which modern life has become easier than the past. Hunger has decreased, medicine has advanced, goods overflow, and there are more tools that allow a person to get through an entire day alone.

But becoming more comfortable does not mean becoming less hurt.

The pain of the past was more direct. Hunger, labor, disease, cold, violence, survival. The body was struck first. What to eat today, whether one could endure tomorrow, the money needed to keep a family alive. Pain was rough, and it was visible.

Modern pain is a little different. Comparison, the future, relationships, recognition, failure, money, appearance, speed, identity, social judgment. The body may be sitting safely inside a room, yet the mind is continuously dragged outside. The hands are still, yet the head does not rest. A person sees someone else’s success, someone else’s face, someone else’s life, and measures their own life again.

At work, I often had this thought.

When the body is tired, the mind is at ease. When the mind is tired, the body is at ease. It is rare for both to be at ease at the same time.

This does not mean that bodily pain is better than mental pain. The pain of the body and the pain of the mind cannot be placed on the same scale. It is not easy to say which is greater, or which is more real.

But there is a difference.

The pain of the body is relatively visible. Blood flows, swelling appears, bruises form, casts are worn, limps are seen. When someone injures a leg, people do not ask why that person walks slowly. It is already visible.

The pain of the mind is different. It is invisible. On the outside, a person sits normally, speaks, and even smiles. So it is more easily doubted. Are they really hurting? Are they simply too sensitive? Is their willpower weak? Everyone struggles, so why only them?

The wound of the mind is not less painful than the wound of the body. It is only less visible.

This invisibility makes modern suffering more complicated.

4. Invisible Wounds Look for Names

When the body is wounded, we wrap it in bandages. If it bleeds, we wipe it. If it breaks, we set it. If it bruises, we wait. A wound is visible, and a visible wound does not need much explanation.

A wound of the mind is different. It does not bleed. There is nowhere to wrap a bandage. It does not appear on an X-ray. So a person whose mind is hurting must keep explaining their pain.

When that explanation repeats, a person begins to look for a name.

Depression. Panic. Anxiety. ADHD. Burnout. Helplessness. Diagnosis. Counseling. Hospital. For some people, these words become the first language that explains their pain.

What could not be said in the past is now being said. That may be a good change. Hidden pain has gained language. But there are also uncomfortable scenes. Some people place their pain inside a name too quickly. Some seem to want sympathy through that name.

That feeling cannot be ignored. But it should not be read only as something to condemn.

An invisible wound wants a visible sign. A person wants someone to recognize their wound. They want someone to acknowledge that they are not exaggerating, that they are not simply strange, that they are truly in pain.

In that sense, a diagnosis is similar to a bandage. It is a social bandage wrapped over an invisible wound of the mind. When it is there, people can understand a little more easily. At least they know that the pain has a name.

But a bandage only explains a wound. The bandage is not the person.

A diagnosis is the same. At first it is a name for understanding myself, but at some point it can become a name that confines me. “I have depression” and “I am a depressed person” are different. The first sentence speaks of a condition. The second speaks of existence. The difference is not small.

A diagnosis may be necessary. But the moment a person places their whole self inside that name, the name becomes not a bandage but a room. And some rooms become comfortable the longer one stays in them, but the longer one stays, the harder it becomes to leave.

5. Pain Is Better Gone, So Why Does It Not Disappear?

I do not like pain.

It is better not to have pain. If it is possible not to hurt, it is better not to hurt. It is better for both mind and body to be wounded as little as possible. There is no reason to go looking for wounds.

And yet, in the human world, it is difficult to live without pain.

If one cuts oneself off from society, pain can decrease. There are fewer people to compare oneself with, fewer people to collide with, fewer people to expect something from, fewer chances for disappointment. If one meets no one, there is no one to be rejected by. Alone, at least, one is less likely to be hurt by people.

But if I were the only person left in the entire world, that would be closer to a meaningless life than a painless life. I would not be hurt by anyone, but I would not reach anyone either. No one would judge me, but no one would call me. No one would abandon me, but no one would wait for me.

Perhaps a person is a person because they live together with others.

Inside that sentence is a strange contradiction. A person must live with other people. Yet the moment a person lives with other people, pain arises. Comparison arises, expectation arises, rejection arises, the desire to be recognized arises. One word from someone can remain for days, and one expression on someone’s face can ruin an entire day. Scenes that look like nothing from outside can stay inside the mind for a long time.

Then what is at the center of pain?

I think it is interaction.

6. The Place Called Interaction

When person meets person, events arise. Words move back and forth, expressions move back and forth, expectations move back and forth, disappointments move back and forth. In between them, a human being confirms the self.

What kind of person am I? Am I loved? Am I useful? Have I fallen behind? Am I strange? Am I enough? These questions rise more strongly among people than when one sits alone in the mountains.

That is why interaction creates pain.

But stopping here would be only half the picture.

Interaction also creates healing.

A person is wounded because of people, but also recovers because of people. One word from someone can become a wound, and one word from someone can make a person stand again. Some relationships break a person down, and some relationships make a person feel that they may still live.

So human relationships are not simply poison. They are not simply medicine either. They are poison and medicine, wound and bandage, pain and recovery.

If this point is missed, modern mental suffering cannot be seen properly. If relationships hurt, cutting off all relationships may reduce pain. But the path of healing is reduced together with it. On the other hand, if one throws oneself into every relationship just because relationships are necessary, one gets hurt again.

The problem is not simply other people versus isolation.

The problem is what kind of interaction one is inside.

And knowing how much I am hurt inside that interaction, and where I recover.

7. Does Protection Cut Off Contact, or Help Us Bear It?

This question also leads to the problem of raising children.

If a person must avoid pain completely, then it would be best for a child to experience nothing. Before the child is hurt, block the wound. Before the child fails, handle the matter instead. Before conflict arises, pull the child out. Before harsh words reach the child, cover the ears.

But does a person raised that way truly become safe?

Parental overprotection can cut off a child’s contact with the world. Catch the child before falling. Protest on the child’s behalf before the child is scolded. Intervene before the child collides with friends. Clear the road before failure can arrive. Even if that heart begins in love, the result may be different. The experience of going through small friction and returning from it disappears.

But the protection of a village is different.

The village of the past did not place children inside a glass box without wounds. A child collided with peers, was scolded by adults, learned to read the expressions of unfamiliar people, experienced small embarrassments, and received small help. The village was not a device that hid the child from the world. It was closer to a structure that let the child meet the world without being completely abandoned.

So the question of protection is not whether protection exists or not.

Parental overprotection can cut off contact. The protection of a village can make contact bearable.

That difference matters.

Removing pain is not always the answer. If even smaller pains are removed, a person may not know how to set the body and mind upright when a greater pain arrives. But that does not mean great suffering is good. It is also dangerous to say that rough and extreme pain, like in the past, raises a person well.

So the question becomes more difficult.

How much suffering does a human being need?

8. How Much Pain?

It is easy to say that “some degree of pain is necessary.” But that sentence is not enough.

The problem of pain is not only a problem of quantity. How much it hurt does not explain everything. The same event becomes a passing experience for one person and a long-lasting wound for another. The same failure becomes material for the next attempt for one person, and a memory that prevents another person from moving again.

What matters is the condition under which pain is experienced.

Is that pain something one must bear alone? Is there a place to return to after that pain? Is that pain visible or invisible? Does that pain make the body move, or does it keep scraping away at the mind? Does that pain bring me into contact with the world, or does it close me completely?

The question of how much pain is necessary should actually become this:

What kind of pain can pass without destroying a person?

What kind of pain lets a person understand themselves?

What kind of pain sends a person back into the world, and what kind of pain locks a person inside themselves?

I do not yet have a complete answer to this question. But one thing becomes clearer. What human beings need is not pain itself. Pain does not need to be glorified. It is better not to have pain. But if pain cannot disappear completely, then what is needed is a way to go through pain without losing oneself.

To know what makes me collapse when pain arrives.

To know what relationships make me hurt more.

To know what work makes me come alive again.

To know what dream makes me walk again.

This question eventually returns to me.

9. I Looked Into Myself for a Long Time

I do not think I am a complete person.

I am not even certain that I am living properly. There are still many times when I do not know what path to take, how to live happily, or what I truly want.

So I tried to look into myself for a long time. I kept asking what kind of person I am, what strengths and weaknesses I have, what makes me collapse, and what makes me come alive again. The reason I looked into saju, the Korean Four Pillars system, asked AI about myself, and kept checking my way of thinking and my tendencies was ultimately the same.

I wanted to know myself.

Because if I do not know myself, I do not know what kind of pain will break me. I do not know what will help me recover. I do not know in what direction I must go to become even a little happier.

I thought about why I live. I thought about whether I should just die. I had that thought more than a thousand times. The answer did not come easily. No matter how much I thought, there was no clear answer as to why a human being must live, or why we must keep moving through this much pain.

But at some point, one large phrase remained inside me.

Hongik Ingan.

To broadly benefit humanity.

That phrase became a direction for me. When I did not know why I should live, when I did not know what I should do, that phrase remained like a North Star.

So I started a business. It was not an easy path. It is still not easy. Money is difficult. My body is tired. My mind is tired. Even so, I have been living in that direction. I keep going with the desire to make something that benefits people.

I cannot say this is the answer. I cannot say everyone should live this way. But for me, this is the answer I have reached so far.

I try to study myself, to learn what pain I can bear and what pain is hard for me to bear, to distinguish the relationships in which I recover from the relationships in which I collapse. And on top of that, I try to live while holding onto the direction called Hongik Ingan.

10. Again, Why Can’t Human Beings Live Without Suffering?

The first question began on the screen.

Why do so many young people say they are mentally struggling?

That question soon changed into other questions.

Have modern people become weaker? Did the pain of the past make people stronger? Has modern life really become easier? How are bodily pain and mental pain different? Why is the wound of the mind invisible? Why does a person give a name to their pain? Why does pain arise the moment one connects with society? And yet why can a person not live without society? What kind of protection weakens a person, and what kind of protection helps a person stand again? How much pain is necessary?