This is one part of Buddhism that is quite different from life as it’s usually lived.
It’s often said in the modern day that if someone received a consequence like disgrace or blame, it is simply because of their actions. In fact, it can be considered insensitive to even suggest that insignificance, disgrace, or blame are just because you can’t please everyone.
I personally have a hope or weak conviction that all these worldly things don’t make a person what they are, but even some Buddhists seem to believe in them. For instance, there’s a belief that if you are happy you’ll be a delight to be around. But that seems somewhat like, “having more pleasure than pain makes you better.”
What to do about this sometimes doubt, which if severed, would probably make me a lot wiser than now?
Not everything that happens to us is due to past kamma. Sometimes, it’s just life in the conditional world. DN16.
This is true, and was, even for the Buddha.
Some people are not receptive to what’s pure and wholesome.
I’d offer that “pleasure” is not the same as internal happiness. The former is due to contact with the sensual world and the latter is, so to speak, a beautiful “internal” state that is not dependent on worldly circumstances.
Being around beings at this level is indeed a gift and can be transformative. See MN2 and SN3.18.
If it’s a ‘sometimes doubt’, it must also be a ‘sometimes-not doubt’; it comes and it goes. That the 8 considerations are impermanent is one of the key points I get from that sutta.
I believe the impermanence can be seen in two ways, internally and externally. Internally, one of the eight ‘occupies the mind’, a few hours or months later another of the eight is filling the screen and the first obsession has faded back for a while. On and on it goes. Externally, I see the 8 conditions are impermanent for others. Fame/disrepute as one example: The big-name celebrities from when I was a teenager have mostly either fallen out of sight or been chewed up and spat out by the tabloids. The spotlight turns to the new breed of ‘stars’ who probably don’t realize that they’re on a conveyor belt.
Also, from this side of a tombstone with letters and numbers engraved, the person represented doesn’t appear to have any more interaction with the eight considerations. Perhaps they continued on to another life, perhaps not, but for that individual at least, the eight considerations no longer apply - impermanent.
