CF doesn’t have it’s claws clasped around my throat anymore. It’s more like a separate entity, a demon, who follows me wherever I go and watches me from afar. It knows it can’t really fuck with me too much. It knows it can’t kill me, or make me cough up bloody mucus, or turn every minor cold into a major lung infection anymore. But, that demon can still remind me of its presence by turning my Chipotle into The Shits, and it’s patiently waiting for the second shoe to drop (if it ever does), so it can pounce on me and make my life a living, breathing hell once again (something, something, don't you know CF wears a suit and tie?).
At this point, I'm beginning to accept the fact that CF will always be with me, no matter what I do, or how far medical science progresses, or how much I beg God to make my CF permanently disappear. God, as much as I hate to say this, allowed CF to exist for a reason. I don't believe He specifically picked me out to be born the way I was born, or I was ever allowed to choose who I wanted to be before I was born. It's just the hand fate dealt me, and fate ain't fair.
However, suffering is universally necessary for a lot of reasons. I don't believe a world without pain and suffering has ever or will ever exist. Even Scripture alludes to the idea that a perfect creation is not without its challenges. From the very beginning in Genesis, God commanded Adam and Eve to multiply, subdue, and dominate the Earth, all of which are extremely harsh terms. Plus, if death and suffering didn't exist before Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, how could they've successfully multiplied and dominated the Earth without annihilating it in the process? I don't think even a perfect Young Creationist's Earth could properly handle fourteen billion human beings and counting, plus every animal that's ever existed since Adam and Eve's time. Without the death of animals (which humans are animals), overpopulation would ravage the Earth. Without the death of plants, animals and humans (in this hypothetical world) would have nothing to eat and would simply waste away. On and on.
But, I digress.
What I'm trying to get at is this: suffering and dying are both a fundamental part of existence, especially the suffering part (as I believe in the afterlife, reproduction won't be necessary, therefore death won't be necessary). Remove suffering and I believe you're wiping out existence too. We can discuss what an existence without suffering would look like till the cows come home, but I don't think that conversation goes anywhere, especially coming from my current views on suffering (which, by the way, is always subject to change).
But, what I'm more than happy to discuss is the nature of suffering. Or, in other words, what life would look like if all our wishes came true?
