It's Alright to Die

Do you remember the moment you discovered your finitude? People are terrified of the conscious certainty of a death without hope. We're naturally anxious because we are ultimately helpless and abandoned in a world where we are fated to die. What if ghosts were real? It's awful to think of that, as the spirit world as a dim and chaotic afterglow before the ultimate darkness. The believers cling to their jejune notions of dying and eschew the strict binary between life and death. They give what is unreal precedence over what is real. It's much easier imagining we're all going to live forever. But this static existence cheapens life. What is meant by the notion of the absurd? It doesn't simply refer to some vague perception that modern life is replete with paradoxes, incongruities, and confusion (though that perception is certainly consistent with the concept). Instead, the absurd expresses a fundamental disharmony, a tragic incompatibility, in our existence. The absurd is essentially the product of a collision or confrontation between our human desire for order, meaning, and purpose in life and the blank, indifferent silence of the universe. Such is our fate: we inhabit a world that is indifferent to our suffering and deaf to our protests.

What are some philosophical responses to this predicament? The first is blunt and simple: suicide. If for whatever reason someone decides that life isn't worth living, or he's sick and tired of everything, seeking an escape, or flirting with the tempting allure of nonexistence, he can kill himself. The hoi polloi stare upon the suicidally successful with disdain. I've always championed them.

Another response is the religious solution of positing a trancendent world of solace and meaning beyond this world. This "solution" is tantamount to philosophical suicide and is transparently evasive and fraudulent. In effect, instead of removing oneself from the absurd confrontation of self and world like the physical suicide, the religious believer simply removes the offending world, replacing it, via a metaphysical abracadabra, with a more aggreable alternative. In the warped world of faith, salvation can only arrive from an external, and by definition, more powerful source. The convoluted efforts to circumvent absurdity indicate the importance of purpose and self-worth to the health and survival of the human psyche. Widespread feelings of inadequacy compound the problem as they are propagated throughout cultures influenced by the incestuous echo chamber of corporate driven mass media, promoting unrealistically high expectations and standards in wealth, beauty, and social esteem. Welcome to the hell that religion and belief creates.

One can also accept absurdity. Better yet embrace it. Since the absurd is an unavoidable, defining characteristic of the full human experience, the only proper response is full, unflinching, courageous acceptance. Life, suggests Camus, can "be lived all the better if it has no meaning."

But this is easier said than done. Full humanness means full fear and trembling. It takes men of granite and breaks them down and makes them cry like Péguy did standing on the platforms of Parisian buses with hot tears streaming down his cheeks. A few weeks ago I visited a friend in the cemetary. I stood there with the soft, fragrant wind at my face staring at the graves rolling in the distance, wondering who these people were and what their lives were like. I thought about their most treasured moments and how while they were here now beneath the sad watery sky, their moments are forever secured in eternity's vault. As the evening shadows began to drown the crosses and trees in a vast and silent sadness I realized that there are certain truths that remain forever hidden from the heart. In the grand scheme of things there's nothing to be afraid of. Find salvation in the hearts of those who love us. It's that simple.