Does suffering build character?

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Not quite true. Overcoming challenges builds character, but while the experience of suffering could be defined as a personal challenge, it's generally a negative one, and best avoided.

Positive challenges which build character are constructive: like pushing yourself through the pain to achieve a new personal best in the gym, for example. Suffering is more akin to dropping the gym equipment on your foot and ending up in the A&E with a broken toe.
 
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It technically can (could also not), and yes, suffering in itself, literally.

Why? Because what character is, is a certain way someone has their brain "wired" as, their balance of elements: hormones, chemicals, structure, how they interact with each other, etc.

Suffering in itself can change that arrangement, and so it can make someone "build character" (read: rearrange those elements in their brain).

So yes it can, as in literally be the cause of that change.
 
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Some people are able to take a moral lesson from their own suffering and try to prevent it from happening again and to other people too.
The rest thinks that other people, the young in particular, don't suffer enough and that they should stop whimpering about let's say bad work conditions and fucked up healthcare and think that every improvement is bad.
So it's partly true, depends on the person.
 
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We Are The Witches said:
Why? Because what character is, is a certain way someone has their brain "wired" as, their balance of elements: hormones, chemicals, structure, how they interact with each other, etc.
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This is wrong. Character is a conscious decision on how you act when there’s no consequence. The idea that your brain is hardwired to perform a certain way is a cope by people of poor character to shift the onus off themselves.
 
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Unironically yes. Read The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. It is very dry and not particularly well written but it's an excellent collation of hard data pertaining to some of the many ways suffering builds mental resilience and triggers beneficial physiological adaptations, and some of the many ways avoiding suffering is making you unhappy and unhealthy.

You won't because you're lazy and gay but that's not my problem, I did my part.
 
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It can, if you take the effort to process it correctly. Some people suffer and just continue to suffer while they wish for a better world. While others learn to accept that suffering is just a fact of life and figure out ways to make the best of it. It's all a matter of perspective at the end of the day, unless youre in a mob den with your head in a vice, but even then you'll be dead soon enough and none of this will have mattered.
 
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McMitch said:
This is wrong. Character is a conscious decision on how you act when there’s no consequence. The idea that your brain is hardwired to perform a certain way is a cope by people of poor character to shift the onus off themselves.
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It's not.

Ultimately, the human brain follows a deterministic, or "heavily" deterministic way, although a lot of variables are in play here. This is why I said it "can", because it can affect someone in such a way, but also it can not. There is a correlation between some criminals and a past of abuse, and in such cases, that suffering may have affected them in such a way.

OP is talking about "character" which could also be affected (to not focus on criminal or hateful activity), but at the end of the day, your conscious character or behaviour has a lot of background/baggage behind, that molded it to some level.

There is no permanent hardwire here, a lot of things can impact someone and "wire" them over time in several degrees, and genetics also come into play.

So like I said, all of these variables that make up the reality you're in, will either determine or heavily impact your behaviour. Your life may be good enough where you have not experienced being pushed or forced to develop in a certain way, that doesn't mean what I said is false.

TL,DR: you're less free than you think.
 
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Pushing trough adversity for long periods builds self esteem and character.

Suffering for long periods teaches you the world is unfair and however much you try, it's not going to get better.

And when it does get better. The suffering endured leaves lasting scars that never heal. So you have to adjust to the new normal.

Some never make it trough suffering. Either give up or decide to die young since nothing matters.

Suffering doesn't build character. It tests your character and will change you for the worse if you break and spiral deep enough.

Some never make it. And are unable to write a post on KF.st. Or anywhere.

Tl;dr
Suffering tests you and if you overcome it, you gain knowledge that you are capable of taking care of yourself, then seek some comfort to recharge. Gives you a gauge of how resilient you are.

Prolonged suffering changes you. Some argue for the better, some for worst. Too much of it leads to a breaking point of irreversible damage to the psyche.
 
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