Manuscrit intitulé : « Essay on my aim in life. » [Daté du 4 juin.]
Class 1-J
Hikigaya Hachiman
« The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one. »
- E. M. Cioran
Life is purely arbitrary and inherently meaningless. Trying to find meaning in life, purpose in life, one's raison d'être, [note 1] would all be in vain. Kafka said that the meaning of life is that it stops. In more definite terms, death is what more or less causes the futility of life, and also poses the inevitable limit to all reason within it. However, since death necessarily follows from birth, it is actually the memory of one's birth that is the tragic problem of one's life - and not death in and of itself. The attempt to reason an understanding of or a solution to the conscious awareness of death, stemming from birth, is ergo both the driving force of philosophy, religion, and science and simultaneously the collapsing force - the indomitable impediment before which all reason, logic, and human effort crumble. Consequently, any philosophical attempt to reason with the absurdity of the human condition can only be a contemplation of failure. Existence is purportedly the precarious attainment of relevance in the intense flux of the past, present, and future, yet even the most apropos events carry within the irrelevance inherent in them. Such is the absurdity of the human condition, indeed, when one is confronted with the quandary of having to find relevance in an irrelevant existence.
Cioran wrote in his first book, On The Heights of Despair,
« There are no arguments. Can anyone who has reached the limit bother with arguments, causes, effects, moral considerations, and so forth? Of course not. For such a person there are only unmotivated motives for living. On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos. When all the current reasons - moral, esthetic, religious, social, and so on - no longer guide one's life, how can one sustain life without succumbing to nothingness? Only by a connection with the absurd, by love of absolute uselessness, loving something which does not have substance but which simulates an illusion of life.
I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing. » Thus, in the words of Cioran, when one has realised the utter meaninglessness and futility of life, realised its arbitrariness, and is unable to find any daemon [note 2] or framework to sustain one's life, one can only live by embracing the sheer absurdity of it all. Life is to live in the procrastination of death. One procrastinates by indulging in activities that have no substance, due to the meaninglessness of life, yet conjure « an illusion of life ». For Cioran, writing was an alternative to killing himself.
Émile Durkheim wrote in his book, Suicide, « It is society which, fashioning us in its image, fills us with religious, political and moral beliefs that control our actions. » Human endeavours are always synonymous and fated with failure. Society's meanings or definitions of « success » and what ought to be one's aim in life are thoroughly and resoundingly spurious, fallacious, delusory, factitious, faux, farcical, chimerical, ludicrous, inane, preposterous, and absurd. The expectations of the society may not always line up with the aspirations of an individual. Indeed, in most cases societal expectations do not line up with those of an individual. Individuals conform to society, in many cases against their own will. This leads to a life that is utterly wasted, exempli gratia, in slaving away for the benefit of capitalistic corporations. According to Cioran, one of the greatest delusions of the average man is to forget that life is death's prisoner. Almost all delusions have their roots in society, or are promulgated by it. Societal notions and ideals of perfection are just that - notions and ideals without any basis whatsoever in reality.
Even if one does have ambitions to succeed in life, one's definition of success only includes the ideals indorsed by society - which includes money, fame, power, and other such shallow ideals which only bring a shallow sense of satisfaction. Society is a cesspool of superficiality, and things like societal norms are ultimately meaningless and trivial in the face of the ultimate doom of all that is born - death. Therefore, at the end of the day, there is no success that awaits humanity - only failure. Trying to climb out of this valley of despair to the other side of the mountain only leads one to yet another valley of despair. « I don't understand why we must do things in this world, why we must have friends and aspirations, hopes and dreams. Wouldn't it be better to retreat to a faraway corner of the world, where all its noise and complications would be heard no more? Then we could renounce culture and ambitions; we would lose everything and gain nothing; for what is there to be gained from this world? » Cioran writes thus on the futility of what society makes us value in life and that there isn't anything to be gained from it.
Émile Durkheim points out that suicide has become an increasing problem as society has become increasingly more « civilised » – as people become more educated and, concomitantly, as people increasingly feel they are themselves « individuals » that are personally responsible for their position in life. Such personal responsibility linked with a sense of social isolation lays the ground for the possibility that people will choose to end their lives. Cioran writes, however, that killing oneself is not worth it as one always ends up killing oneself too late, in his book The Trouble With Being Born. Cioran wrote how even though he was aware of his total insignificance, absolutely persuaded that he was nothing in this universe, he still felt that his was the only real existence - exposing the disconcordance between thoughts and feelings. One's thoughts and emotions can be diametrically distinct at a specific moment. Exempli gratia, I think that life and as a result aspirations are inherently meaningless yet I feel a strong urge to return to France. Both the examples, by Cioran and by me, bear testimony to how irrational, or rather unbound by reason, one's feelings are.
Thus, my thoughts and feelings induce nihilism and nostalgia in me respectively. If I were to try to explain my aims according to my feelings, it would be quite simple actually. France is where I was born, and where I feel I belong the most. It all only went downhill ever since I moved to England for a year, and then finally here - in Japan. I can't think, but I can feel why I would need to return to France. As to what I would do after having moved there, I would pursue higher education at the École Normale Supérieure, although there are plenty of other prestigious institutes and universities from which I could choose as well. It will also be quite economical to study in France, as higher education there is virtually free. I intend to become a writer, although careers as a philosopher, a historian, a psychologist, a literary critic, a professor, or even a polymath are not out of the question. If I am able to find a spouse, I would prefer to be a househusband as it would give me more free time to write, read, or do anything else to distract myself from the absurdity of my life and existence.
Any semblance of aim present in me, is present in my feelings, in my id, das Es. [note 3] However, even these aims right now are not permanent, they may change in the future. Nor are they especially helpful in dealing with the inevitable doom that befalls any and every thing which is born - death. They can only serve to distract me from this inevitable doom and don't solve the real problem per se. Ultimately, I would be faced with a period of second childhood as well, the harbinger of death, as described by the Melancholy Jaques in his famous monologue in Act II Scene VII of Shakespeare's As You Like It « Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. » That brings me to my conclusion, which can be summed up by a single quote.
« I'm simply an accident. Why take it all so seriously? »
- E. M. Cioran
N.B.:
Note 1 — Raison d'être is a French expression, also used in English, meaning « reason for being » or « reason to be ».
Note 2 — Daemon is the Latin word for the Ancient Greek daimon, which refers to a lesser deity or a guiding spirit.
Note 3 — In Freud's model of the psyche, the id is the set of uncoordinated instinctual desires; the super-ego plays the critical and moralising role; and the ego is the organised, realistic agent that mediates, between the instinctual desires of the id and the critical super-ego. It is to be noted that the terms « id », « ego », and « super-ego » were not Freud's own. They are Latinisations by his translator James Strachey. In the original German Freud himself wrote « das Es », « das Ich », and « das Über-Ich » - « the It », « the I », and « the Over-I » (or « I above ») respectively.
