When I thought of this question the first thing that came up to my mind was this famous quote from Socrates: “Unexamined life is not worth living.” What my co-organizer came up with as an anecdote is ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ by Camus. The story is about the Greek legend of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top. Camus here is illustrating individual’s persistent struggle against the essential and unavoidable absurdity and meaninglessness of life. The only way for us human being to live is by accepting this meaninglessness, and, to create a meaning by ourselves: for Sisyphus, the only alternative to suicide was to rebel by rejoicing the act of rolling the boulder up the hill.
Can it be really up to us each individual who decides and creates the meaning of our lives? It does sounds like a just and true thing to say, but if it is true, even a meaning of life that one decides can be even something that is extremely harmful to other people or damaging to the society. Would such life also be ‘good’ and ‘meaningful’ life? And if it is true, the meaning of life can also be something very trivial or easy to achieve, such as brushing one’s teeth everyday. While it sounds convincing to say that it is their life so it is them who decide what gives meaning to it, we also cannot help wonder whether it then is too complacent or self-righteous.
A friend of mine has been deeply depressed. One of these days he sent me a message: ‘A fleeting thought: I’m angry at the meaninglessness of my suffering. If there was a reason and/or a meaning to it, it would be much more bearable.’ He has been suffering mentally since in his teenage – he is probably too smart, too kind, and too sensitive not to suffer. He suffers from the meaningless of his suffering. The only thing I can do seems to try to understand him, his words, and his truth, and I try to do so as carefully and tenderly as possible.
Life might be absurd. Suffering might be as absurd. We, who live in the box of such absurdity and meaninglessness, yet continue to live. Sisyphus, whose eternal task was to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top, created the meaning of his life in the act of keep rolling the boulder. We are all living this meaningless life by creating and attaching whatever meanings we can find.
I am going to meet this friend to do stuff together – eating out, chatting, hiking, walking around, visiting museums. However ordinary these activities are, however ‘meaningless’ they seem to feel, if I can see a meaning, if I can help him see or ‘find’ a meaning, can a kind person like him be saved from his sufferings?
Hoko Horii 