The great mystery of human experience, Simone Weil wrote, is not suffering but rather affliction (Weil 1977a, 441). For most of us, there is not much difference, except perhaps in degree and duration. Affliction is suffering that is extended over time, suffering that seems to blight some lives even at birth, suffering that seems beyond human comprehension and endurance. For Weil, an unorthodox religious essayist, affliction is a special quality of suffering. In affliction, distress of the soul and social degradation are at least as important as physical suffering (Weil 1977a, 452). For Weil, affliction shares the quality of what Julia Kristeva (1982), psychoanalyst and literary critic, called abjection. Abjection means more than the loss of pride, dignity, and worth; in abjection, one loses more than one's sense of self-worth – one is in danger of losing one's self.

Even as they share little else, both Weil and Kristeva (1996, 213–15) understand the attractions of abandoning the self. The difference is that for Weil, affliction may have the quality of a blessing. For Weil, affliction is suffering made meaningful. Affliction makes suffering meaningful when it fosters the experience of metaxy (metaxu), a Platonic term adopted by Weil (1977d) to signify that one is not the center of the world, that the center is outside – indeed, all around.