This is something I think about from time to time, and it saddens me deeply. I don’t like to see anything or anyone suffer in pain. And the world is full of th

This is something I think about from time to time, and it saddens me deeply. I don’t like to see anything or anyone suffer in pain. And the world is full of this - every day hundreds of thousands of creatures die horribly due to predation or accident. Many unheard, or if heard, ignored. I think that if you were to describe to a sapient alien what pain and suffering is, and then show them the way of things here, they would brand this planet Hell; a place of endless suffering, and horror in abstract, for all eternity. Yet that’s not all the suffering in the world, I participate in this - I tell myself that the cow butchered for the dinner I ate tonight was butchered humanely; that it did not suffer in death, it was well fed, cared for, was intellectually stimulated, enjoyed the company of it’s companions. However, I know this is a convenient lie, one I tell myself to mask the truth; the truth is often far from that, the mechanics of industrial farming render this vision obsolete, replaced by a new horror. No less horrifying than the natural order of things, perhaps more so. Is this world more than the suffering we choose not to see? Of course it is. The world is stark, beautiful and full of life. The order of nature binding it all together is broadly indifferent to suffering and beauty. I’m only one person, but I’m glad I can think on this, it’s a luxury the majority of other creatures are not granted. Edit: I may have let my mind carry me away when writing this