Hey Reader,

I finished Matterhorn. Apparently, Matterhorn isn’t finished with me.

Karl Marlantes’ novel about Marines in Vietnam shook me. I’m still thinking about the characters. Since then, I’ve been reading more about the Vietnam War—a mix of fiction, biography, and history.

Smedley Butler’s War Is a Racket is a short book published in 1935 by a retired Marine Corps major general who had received the Medal of Honor twice. Once for his actions in Veracruz, Mexico, and once in Haiti. This was a man whose courage his country had honored at the highest level. And he was arguing that war benefits a small number of powerful people while everyone else pays the price.

One book is a sprawling novel. The other is a blunt political argument. They were written decades apart, and they do very different things.

Moving between them, I kept coming back to a question neither book quite asks this way: What are we supposed to do with suffering?

We have familiar things we tell ourselves—and people who are hurting. Hardship builds character. Struggle makes us stronger. Pain teaches lessons we couldn’t learn any other way. Suffering may not be pleasant, but surely it must be useful.

What if those promises aren’t true?

Matterhorn gives me plenty of reason to ask.

The Marines in the novel endure the same war, the same fear, and many of the same losses. Yet they don’t emerge as improved versions of themselves. Some become more compassionate. Some become more cynical. Some gain wisdom. Some seem to learn nothing at all.

One passage stopped me cold. Mellas, a young Marine officer, realizes that caring deeply about other people is what makes loss hurt so much. The suffering matters because the relationship mattered.

That’s a very different idea than suffering as self-improvement.

Butler turns the question outward. Who benefits while other people suffer? While ordinary people bear the costs of war, he argues, businesses and powerful interests profit from it. Coming from a Marine with his record, that accusation deserves our attention.

We ask a lot of pain. We want the difficult season to produce wisdom, the setback to reveal a hidden gift, the struggle to arrive carrying a lesson.

The alternatives are uncomfortable. Sometimes suffering may reveal character rather than build it—and what it reveals may not be admirable. Sometimes hardship may deepen our appreciation for what we love.

And maybe some painful experiences in life are simply painful.

I’m not sure what to do with all of this yet. I’ve also been studying the book of Job in the Old Testament. Slowly. I’m only on chapter two, and when I return to it, I stay a while. I’m taking the questions seriously. I don’t have answers.

These books have been rattling around in my head for months. I can find love and loyalty in Matterhorn without deciding the suffering was worth it. I can read Butler and ask how much of the suffering he describes could have been prevented.

I’m leaning toward the idea that not every difficult experience needs to become a life lesson. Especially one we assign to somebody else while they’re still hurting.

Read something today that makes you smile, Reader!

—Tracy "Still curious about suffering" Winchell

P.S. Has a book complicated something you thought you understood? Hit reply and tell me which book—and what it left you wondering.

If you're enjoying Unhustled, you might also like Mike Vardy's work. I've known Mike for going on 10 years now. He was one of my favorite guests on the now-retired Reboots Podcast. He's the first creator who started talking about how productivity practices are less about doing more and more about doing what you want to make of your life.

The Practice of Productiveness Thoughts and practices for working with time—not against it. I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity. Subscribe​

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