It may be snobbish of me in a somewhat strange way, but it seems that some of the best writers out there are the ones who had lives fraught with struggle and suffering.

There’s something in the writing, when someone has suffered — you can just tell. Maybe some special depth, some undercurrent of sorrow, or at least, a type of appreciation of it. And I don’t mean appreciation in the sense that its regarded in a necessarily positive manner, but rather that it is acknowledged.

Perhaps another way to describe it is a certain lack of naivety. And to explain what I mean, I shall borrow the words of Ursula K. Le Guin, because she lays it out perfectly in her novel “The Dispossessed,” and though it is a novel, to paraphrase another talented writer (Stephen King), there is truth inside the lie there. But, here it is:

“[Suffering] exists. It’s real…I can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, or will ever cease to exist. Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes, you know it. You know it as the truth…all of us here are going to know grief; if we live fifty years, we’ll have known pain for fifty years.”

It exists, and even in the bright moments, one is still aware of the possible sorrows lurking.

But that’s not to diminish the value of happier, brighter moments by suggesting that sorrow or suffering is always threatening or a few steps away.

It doesn’t mean that it overshadows the good in a fashion that blots out the positive. In a way, this awareness of suffering heightens positive experiences by the contrast it provides.

I think you can gain a better understanding, and appreciation, this time in the positive sense, for the good things after experiencing the bad things.

The best people that I know are the ones who have experienced the most suffering. Of course, there are plenty of decent people who have lived lives of privilege and comfort, who have been more insulated from suffering than others, but there is something different about those who have been subjected to suffering and hardship.

A certain depth, resilience, strength. Those who are consistently down and out and yet still find the drive somewhere to push on, if, for the sheer sake of survival, those are the ones who command more respect. It is hard to admire someone who has had an easy time of it.

It’s a strange thing to say I suppose. Perhaps there some kind of envy driving that — I mean, who wouldn’t want a life of ease? Who would choose suffering over simplicity? But, I stand by my comment nonetheless.

There’s also a relatability that authors who have struggled have that those who didn’t don’t.

Willy Vlautin, in speaking of Raymond Carver as an inspiration, captures it pretty well: “He wasn’t better than me, he wasn’t from Harvard, he didn’t get a scholarship to Oxford, he was just a man from the Northwest trying to hang on. I started writing as hard as I could from that moment on…I had all this sadness and darkness on my back, and I didn’t know what it was…but Carver opened it all up.”

There is a lot more that could be said about suffering and its effects upon people, but perhaps that is a topic to mine later. In any case, I think the writers who had to struggle tend to produce better stuff. Not exclusively, but in my opinion there does appear to be a correlation.