The Suicide Question

Before we contemplate on the meaning of life, let’s take a detour to ponder on a grim reality: Is life worth living? Man is conscious, which means that he is the only being that can choose to end his life prematurely, on conscious decision. If life is not worth living, we might as well die. Thus, the question of whether life is worth living serves as a prelude to creation of any meaning.

Some of us might have experienced that sudden emotional flicker of “ending it all” when we once felt stuck in the deep end of shame, guilt, or grief, and life forward felt like an impossibility. That flickering contemplation of suicide brought us to a point where we either have a reason for living or we do not. And choosing to remain alive – even the reason is no more than “I just don’t want to die” – is a prelude to creating one’s own meaning of life.

The philosopher Will Durant received several letters in 1930 from different persons, declaring their intention of committing suicide. The following year, he sent out a letter to 100 luminaries to compile the findings into a book “On The Meaning Of Life”. Here’s an excerpt of the summary passage he addressed to anyone contemplating suicide: 

“I suspect that there is some ultimate significance to everything, though I know that our little minds will never fathom it… Perhaps if we face frankly our mental limitations, we shall take even our pessimism more modestly.

Life has no meaning outside of its own terrestrial self, that the individual has no immortality, and that every civilisation, as surely as every flower, decays… The meaning of life, then, must lie within itself; it must be sought in life’s own instinctive cravings and natural fulfilments. Why should we ask for an ulterior meaning to vitality and health? They would be goods in their own right.

Even if life had no meaning except for its moments of beauty, that would be enough; this plodding through the rain, or fighting the wind, or tramping the snow under the sun, or watching the twilight turn into night, is reason aplenty for loving life… Nature will destroy me, but she has a right to – she made me, and burned my senses with thousand delights; she gave me all that she will take away.

You must not shoot your brains out on the basis of these airy hypotheses; if you do you will join the long list of those holy martyrs who died for absurdities… If you insist upon dying, undertake tasks of some danger and use in adding to these discoveries; risk yourself in medical or mechanical experiment, and give some significance to your life and death. But whatever you do, don’t die of philosophy.” [text rearranged and edited]

The blog is adapted from the book Life Has No Meaning Except for the Meaning You Give.