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Assata: An Autobiography
(www.akpress.org)
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Considering suicide? You might want to read Cioran's “The Trouble with Being Born” before doing so.
(lemmy.ml)
I was browsing Reddit (anonymously) the other day when I stumbled upon a curious post. A suicidal person writing their final words and thanking the people who messaged them. I remember them writing something along the lines of:
I know it will be painful at first for my parents, but on the long run it will be a relief for them since they no longer have to carry the financial burden of a 24 year old failure.
It strikes me how a young individual can hold such grim ideas in their mind. And what's more upsetting is the futility in convincing them otherwise, that their life has just started and they have so much to live for, not to mention the immense pain and suffering they will bring to their circle of people. Of course, I don't know what this person has went through in order to reach such irreversible stage, but I still firmly believe that, for the most part at least, nothing justifies the act of suicide. This conviction stems not from a moralistic point of view, but rather from a very simple and benign concept: that of curiosity.
I remember reading Emil Cioran's The Trouble with Being Born many years ago, not being able to comprehed how the author had such a laissez faire attitude towards life.
The book consists of short aphorisms dealing with the themes of death, suicide, the meaningless of life and so forth. Cioran's writing is very nihilistic. It expresses the many feelings and ideas shared by suicidal individuals; of failing to grasp the meaning of life, or the fear of not living up to expectations, the remorse of existing in the first place. By reading The Trouble with Being Born at face value, one might believe that Cioran was hanging on a thread between continuing his depressing life or ending it all right after his ink dries. Yet, it may surprise the inattentive reader that Cioran died at the old age of 84, having lived a mostly stable life—with the exception of dealing with chronic insomnia, which influenced his writing. Indeed, he even made sure to be as healthy as possible in his later life so as to not accelerate his timely death. So, what gives?
The source of the author's disquietude, as the the title of the book, stems from the problem with being born, precisely that we are not given a choice in our own birth. We are thrown into the world without any clear guide on how to live life. To Cioran, every object from which a person tries to derive some meaning, is a mere distraction, and the only thing which prevails is the inevitability of one's own death. This fact alone is surely to bring anxiety to the intellect, as one tries to cling to some intrinsic meaning and to certain expectations we have of our destiny.
Cioran writes, “I know peace only when my ambitions sleep. Once they waken, anxiety repossesses me.” Expectation and ambition imply that there are successes and failures. Success further invigorates the metaphysical framework of meaning we have built for ourselves. Conversely, failing to achieve our ambitions or to be up to our expectations provokes a critical hit to said framework. What then happens when we are hit with a succession of relentless failures in life, when this facade of meaning shatters completely and we are left with the approaching abyss of death? To many, the logical step at this point would be to simply take one’s own life. But here exactly where the common thread between Cioran and the suicidal nihilist ends.
To Cioran, all of our ambitions are, as already mentioned, mere delusions and distractions to our looming death. Yet, paradoxically, that there is no point to live is more so a reason to persist on living. As much as there is no meaning to life, there is equally no true way to living life. Failure is the purest form of being human:
This is how we recognize the man who has tendencies toward an inner quest: he will set failure above any success, he will even seek it out, unconsciously of course. This is because failure, always essential, reveals us to ourselves, permits us to see ourselves as God sees us, whereas success distances us from what is most inward in ourselves and indeed in everything.
In other words, by embracing failure, one becomes liberated from the expectations they or society have set. One lives life as it comes without preconceived expectations or prospects; one lives life as a curious mystery waiting to unfold.
What's the point of commiting suicide when life will eventually end? As Cioran writes, with a sarcastic tone, “it’s not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” You are already born, it is a fact, so you might as well live your life to its natural end.
To go back to the claim I set at the beginning of this monologue, what prevents one from committing suicide should be curiosity to the many more experiences, interactions and, most possibly, fuck ups that life will bring before them. Not hope for a better future, but a relentless curiosity to what might come next, however inconsequential it may be.
I will end this monologue with one last quote from the book, which hopefully someone in need gets to read; it goes as such:
Astounding, the number of hours I have wasted on ? the “meaning” of what exists, of what happens…. But that “what” has no meaning, as all serious minds know. Hence they devote their time and their energy to more useful undertakings.
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The tools by Phil Stutz & Barry Michels
(lemmy.ml)
It is said that a visitor once came to the home of Nobel Prize–winning physicist Niels Bohr and, having noticed a horseshoe hung above the entrance, asked incredulously if the professor believed horseshoes brought good luck. “No,” Bohr replied, “but I am told that they bring luck even to those who do not believe in them.”
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