An average
person is more likely to kill himself than be killed by terrorism, illness or
accidents.
 |
| Source |
Life is pain,
said the Buddha. Why to live then? That would be the most fundamental question
if we accept the Buddha’s enlightened truth.
Philosophers like Albert Camus wrote treatises on why we should live in
spite of the pain, absurdity, or sheer ridiculousness. The treatises are individual responses to the
question about the meaning of life.
Each
individual has to discover his/her own answer to the question, I think, unless
one is satisfied with the readymade answers given by religions or such
systems. If suicide is the largest cause
of death in the world, one implication is that there are too many individuals
who are not able to find religious or similar readymade answers
meaningful.
One of the
basic biological facts is that life tends to sustain itself in spite of all
odds. Plants and animals will keep
struggling against heat and dust and all sorts of oppressive conditions in
order to live. Yes, to live. Life is pain, the Buddha was right. Life is a struggle, a constant fight against
oppressive forces.
The struggle
is the meaning of life. The struggle is
the essence, Albert Camus showed us through his brilliant essay against
suicide, The Myth of Sisyphus. Life is the rock that Sisyphus carried uphill
with an indefatigable spirit which rebelled against the god who gave him that life.
Rebellion was
Sisyphus’ meaning of life which Camus accepted.
Control of desires which cause the pains of life was the Buddha’s
answer. Experimenting with truth was
Mohandas Gandhi’s way. Different people
discover their own causes to live for and meanings to sustain themselves
against suicidal tendencies. “He who has
a why to live can bear almost any how,” as Nietzsche put it famously.
The why is an
individual choice which may be as commonplace as bringing up children and
seeing them becoming successes in life or as esoteric as discovering formulas
like E = mc2.
How do you
know that you are somewhere on the right track?
Psychologist Erik Erikson has an interesting set of criteria for the different
age groups to check the rightness of our progress. An adolescent who knows what he wants to
become and works towards that goal is on the right track, Erikson said. The failure struggles with identity
crisis. The adult who has understood the
meaning of love and is able to establish comfortable relationships with people
who matter to him/her will not be buffeted by suicidal thoughts. The failure in this age group (20 to 40) will
experience isolation, loneliness and possibly depression. Those in
the next group of 40 to 65 years become very caring if they are on the right
track. The failure experiences
stagnation, a feeling that he/she didn’t achieve anything much in life. Beyond 65, the successful person is a wise
person in Erikson’s view. Wisdom enables
a person to look back on life with a sense of satisfaction. Otherwise life is accompanied with feelings
of guilt about past or a sense of despair.
That’s just a
kind of checklist and nothing more.
Ultimately, we discover own meanings and purposes for life. It is important to discover them. The rising suicide rates indicate that much
at least.
Very true. I guess with all the advances we talk about, our expectations have increased thus increasing our unsatisfaction!
ReplyDeleteAll the advancement is taking us away from ourselves to illusory and elusive objects presumed to be sources of happiness.
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