I found this class, and its readings, to be particularly
influential to me. The purpose of me taking this class to begin with was
because of the content of this one class; to discuss finding meaning to life.
One of the most interesting things I read:
“Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life,
time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it, we live on
the future: “tomorrow”, “later on”, “when you have made your way”, “you will
understand you are old enough.” Such irrelevances are wonderful, for, after
all, it’s a matter of dieing. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that
he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself
in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a
certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He
belongs to time, and by the honor that seizes him, he recognizes his worst
enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought
to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is the absurd.” (pg. 192)
There will come a day where I will look back on my life and
find that the meaning that I aspired to achieve by that given moment in my life
will more than likely not be achieved. Everyday things happen that hinder my
goals and dreams, temporarily offset my aspirations. Some of these things I
have no control over, and some I do. I have to look inward upon myself and pull
from why is it that I continue to live as I do knowing that one day everything
I have ever accomplished will mean nothing to anyone. Knowing that one day I
will cease to exist and time will erase my existence. That in itself is truly
absurd in my eyes. I cannot change it, nor can I get back the days of my life
that have passed.
This is why I find that passage so influential. One day I
will realize that I was living for tomorrow when in reality I should be living
in the today, not merely trying to pass time, but to enjoy the time that I
have. I must live in the moment and treasure what I have now because for all I
know tomorrow I could cease to exist.
When faced with the subject of suicide, I found it rather
interesting to hear everyone’s’ thinking behind it. Some were saying how people
can recover from those emotions, and that they found a new meaning to life.
Whereas some students pointed out that those same people could have merely put
their emotions aside and continued to live on as if life truly had no meaning. I
believe that those who have taken their lives literally found that they had
NOTHING left to live for. They no longer found meaning to life… I honestly
believe that this sense of “recovery” does not quite exist. Once a person gets
to this point in their life where they find they have nothing left to live for
and cannot find that meaning from within, they are already in a sense dead. I think
almost 90 percent of people who consider suicide snap out of it rather quickly
and find a new meaning to life, that it was never a serious deal to them. They were
merely lost in their own thoughts, and felt alone and out of place in an
indifferent world. But to the other 10 percent who literally contemplated for a
great deal of time trying to find their meaning to life, that those people are
never going to quite recover from those emotions. In one way or another that dark
place will always be in the back of their mind.
Often times I have wondered why it is that we have to live
in such a cruel world of struggle and perseverance. Life never seems to be
easy, and even when it does it is so cruelly short lived. I was not blessed
with the happiest life and everything I could ever want out of it. I have had
to work my way up, experience life’s cruelties all on my own, and move forward
from it. I admire those who have had it harder than me; those who have lost
everything and know what it is to have to world turns its back on you. I admire
those people who learned to keep fighting and moving through life feeling
completely alone. I question how some people can throw their lives away by
jumping off a building, overdosing on some kind of drug, or shooting themselves
fatally. How is it that those who continue to live were able to continue living
feeling as if they had nothing left, while others just give up and stop trying
to live? That is truly something absurd. Where do we draw the line between life
and death?
I still have so many questions, and hopefully
through further reflection I will find some answers to these concepts.
Aubrey,
ReplyDeleteI’m assuming, based on the context of your words, that you have never considered suicide. Suicide isn’t about just giving up on living; suicide can have different meanings for each person who commits it. It’s a rash generalization to say that individuals that commit suicide do it merely because they have nothing “left”. It’s really not about that. Coming from someone who has given much contemplation upon suicide, I can honestly say suicide is the most fundamental and simple form of taking one’s life into one’s own, self-serving hands.
At the end of the day, you, you uniquely human individual, are the only one who matters. Therefore, for a person to make the decision to take their life, they are coming to the conclusion that: yes, this is an indifferent world; yes, the world is absurd; yes, we are ultimately alone in a meaningless existence. To the people who commit suicide, they are deciding that they do not wish to be a part of this meaningless world. So I don’t think suicide should be given the harsh attitude I felt it was being given.
For me, rather than commit suicide, I decided to stop being what others wanted me to be and to take control of myself. I don’t think it makes me stronger than others because I “lived” through that time of my life, I think I just decided to take my own approach at life. Too many times we allow ourselves to live for others, for society. It’s important to remember that we are all really just alone.