I

Birth as an act represents the beginning of the tragedy of the individual (the person), the dawn of his suffering in a closed metaphorical, yet realistically palpable circle of the absurdity of everyday life, on the axis of the meaninglessness of existence. It is – as a beginning – consequently caused either by mere chance, which can absolutely be characterized as a banal and unwanted product of carelessness and irresponsibility of the previous sexual act, or else by the conscious initial desire of one or both parents for the continuation of their own genes, their own “blood”. Leaving offspring, i.e. procreation, is primarily connected with the drives and desires of concrete individuals, which represents an aspect of unconsciousness and possible disturbance of their ego, and secondarily with the drive for the continuation of the species, nation or some constructed collective identity of the group, which represents a primitive amoral psychic deviation. Certainly, both initial drives for leaving offspring – from which the act of birth consequently arises – can conditionally be considered an irresponsible act with causalities, and especially – when it comes to the social and religious construct, i.e. the primitive tendency toward “continuation of the species, nation, family line and the like” – as categories of absolute unconsciousness and irresponsibility toward the one who is being born!

Certainly, individuals i.e. partners always have the absolute right to choose whether they want to leave offspring, which stems from their emotional inclination and desire, i.e. from their own psyche and in that context they certainly cannot be condemned for such a tendency. Nevertheless, despite the above, the parents of the individual who will be born – should be aware before its conception that the biological realization of their desire for offspring, the newborn individual – regardless of how sincerely and healthily they may shower it with love, sacrifice and care during its growing up and life – will not free it from potential life sufferings, as well as from the potential acquiring of self-awareness of that very absurdity. It is, of course, impossible to know in advance – whether the newborn individual will consider that life has or does not have meaning – or more precisely, whether during its life it will become aware of the general absurdity or will live in the bubble of the “blessing” of self-deception. However, even if it remains forever in that conditionally “blissful state”, that certainly will not spare it emotional variables and the inexhaustible multi-layeredness of potential suffering during its existence!

The drive to give birth to an individual because of the parents’ desire for offspring, and especially because of the tendency to leave one’s own genes or – in the worst deviant rural tendency – because of the continuation of the species, nation, etc. – consequently stems from the multi-dimensional complexities of the entire range of social, religious, familial and other sets of constellations. Therefore, the desire to leave offspring – from which the birth of the individual arises – if it is not a consequence of some form of imposed context of coercion, represents a conscious act with enormous (ir)responsibility toward the one who is to be born! In that sense, birth, i.e. the desire to leave offspring – in the ethical and moral sense – represents a product of conscious or unconscious, but in any case irresponsible and unconsidered decisions and/or selfish desires of the “creators”, responsible for the birth of a new physical and spiritual form, a new biological product, a new individual (person), who will be exposed to the absolute meaninglessness of existence, the cyclicality of the absurdity of its own existence and probably also the cyclicality of sufferings (to a lesser or greater extent), all the way to its own biological death. However, despite these real constellations, everyone has the right to choose whether they want to leave offspring – therefore despite what was previously stated – they cannot be condemned, but they simply must be aware that the act of conception, i.e. birth for which they are responsible, carries with it a responsibility that can be summarized in one seemingly abstract, but actually extremely complex statement and at the same time question: Does someone want or does not want to be born, i.e. does the awareness of the partners of the stated reality allow them to take the risk of leaving their own offspring!?

The act of conception, i.e. birth – represents nothing else – but only another irresponsible procedure with causalities toward the one who will be born. Accordingly, the desire for “leaving offspring” or “continuation of members of the nation, species, group etc.” represents an act of continuation of absurdity with a whole set of consequences of meaninglessness and potential life suffering of the newborn individual, which she will experience to a lesser or greater extent, and perhaps even come to realize the absurdity during her being within the meaninglessness of human existence as the most deviant form of parasite, the most disgusting species, i.e. form of life that inhabits the planet.

Nevertheless, the newborn individual always has a choice, if it becomes aware of the absurdity. The choice regarding the only real and primary philosophical question freed from metaphysics – does it make sense to live or not!? Or rather, it is left to her – with certain exceptions, if it is a person born mentally retarded or physically paralyzed – the choice whether it makes sense to continue living in absurdity! However, even that choice is multi-layered limited. First of all, the ethical question arises whether the potential suicide of an individual who decides that it makes no sense to continue with life can lead to the suffering of her loved ones, i.e. those who would remain in pain because of her disappearance and be exposed to additional suffering. If, however, the individual – by the coincidence of circumstances – is freed from the stated moral premise and the reality of the concrete situation, then her “free will”, or rather the freedom of choice, is absolutely truly unlimited! Certainly, in order to achieve freedom regarding the choice of potential suicide, the individual must first additionally “free herself” from imposed social constructions. Primarily from unfounded religious dogmas and the patheticity of preventive social activism in preventing suicide – and thereby also annul her own fear of the potential pain of the technical realization of the last act, as well as the fear of failure to realize it, etc. Precisely because of that, it is necessary to introduce the absolute discretionary right of the individual to euthanasia – certainly with the establishment of a certain age limit – but without any other forms of limitation in the context of the legislation of this procedure.

Although I personally advocate antinatalism as a concept – which is quite clearly visible from the previous part of the text – I absolutely do not want to value-label people who want offspring because of emotions known to them and certainly incomprehensible desires to me, i.e. such their tendencies, i.e. drives. In that context, I really simultaneously – contrary to my subjective views – advocate maximum tolerance, i.e. freedom of choice for everyone who decides for reasons known to him to create a new individual, i.e. to leave offspring. Nevertheless, if someone insistently, I emphasize insistently, imposes pseudo-pathological constructions about the continuation of the species, nation, own genes and similar deviant reasons as “argumentation”, I openly point out that it is a pathological state of the concrete individual! My stance regarding antinatalism is therefore primarily based on the argument that individuals should refrain from reproduction and creating new individuals because this tendency in the moral and ethical context represents an essentially irresponsible (and often unconscious) act, regardless of the potentially most sincere and noblest motives of the individuals who decide to leave offspring. In short – the conception and birth of other sentient beings (individuals) by their parents – puts into question whether the newborn person will during her life wish she had not been born, either because of potential sufferings she will go through during life or because of the realization of the general meaninglessness of her own existence. After all, if someone really wants children, he can realize his desire in a noble way in the ethical and moral sense. That is, instead of parents (as individuals) embarking on the morally problematic act of conceiving new life, i.e. giving birth to a new individual through reproduction – they can always solve their desire for children by adopting an already existing child, colloquially speaking, an orphan. By this noble act they would actually perform a socially acceptable and truly individually good and highly ethical deed, taking into account that globally there are millions of children without parents and/or without adequate care. Certainly, I emphasize that this is my subjective stance, which I will further elaborate and argue (in ethical, religious and scientific sense) within the essay titled “Absurdism, Monotheistic Existentialism, Dualism and Antinatalism – Eclectic Subjective Sublimation of the ‘Theory of the Absurd’ in Correlation with Scientific and Ethical Argumentation in Favor of Antinatalist Positions”.

II

 

The absurdity and horror of existence is the crucial fear of the uncertainty that every day carries, along with the awareness of the only certainty – Memento mori – as the only truth and final outcome. The cycle of meaninglessness from the moment of birth to the moment of death, and the curse of existence and its absurdity – represent the real fear of pain and suffering, the subconscious or conscious fear of waking up every day, simply of the waking state and the real everyday life of the individual. The horror of existence – therefore – is the awareness of the meaninglessness of life and the fear of the permanent Sisyphean path through life with real or constructed problems, or simply of the mere routine of permanent everyday life struggles; the fear of not solving or of solving problems, simply the awareness of the absurdity of existence with a series of disappointments and pains during the life of the individual. The greatest horror of existence in the basic sense – therefore – are the cycles of suffering during life that can be reduced – but which it is impossible to avoid and remain completely ambivalent toward them – regardless of the degree of eventual indifference achieved by the individual. That is actually the awareness that nothing can ever be changed, the awareness of absurdity, the absence of longing for anything, anything that would stop the suffering and/or monotony, that infinity of repeating various horrors and permanent everyday struggles, even if they are actually dominantly and not so realistically problematic, but in the final instance represent only life routine in the meaningless repetition of infinite days regardless of their adynamic or dynamic character. Moments or periods of happiness certainly mean something (through the created individual imaginary as forms of self-deception and self-defense), but even they stem from and return to the maw of the only real category: the absurdity of existing. In that sense – even if the life path is filled with a relative absence of suffering, even satisfaction with it – the only redemption and completion represents a natural painless and easy death as the greatest blessing and gift from the creator, i.e. God (for the dogmatic believer in the broadest sense of the definition), as a biological “happy” coincidence (for the atheist) or as deliverance and redemption from the creation of the demiurge (for the Gnostic), etc.

For me personally, an easy and as soon as possible death would represent the greatest gift, redemption, a state of exclusion, complete absence of suffering – the blessing of the sublimity of the one freed from absurdity, the state of unconscious nothingness, a specific form of subjectively understood “nirvana”, simply becoming – I hope – nothing!

III

 

The alternative to natural and painless death is suicide, which can be justified exclusively and only if it does not cause pain to others by the suicidal person – exclusively to his closest ones. In other words, the suicidal person has the absolute right to suicide regardless of motive: because of the horror of excessive suffering (physical and/or psychic), or simply because of the awareness of the meaninglessness of everything as the only absolute truth and indisputable fact. However, that right to suicide has moral grounding only if that final act of the concrete individual does not cause pain to others, i.e. exclusively to his closest ones. In other words, only if it is freed from causality toward other persons.

In the form of a short digression or rather a specific essay, we will point out, without any tendency for deeper analyses, several views of certain authors on suicide stemming from the awareness of the absurd. In that context, we will look at certain aspects of this topic that exist in thinkers such as A. Camus, F. M. Dostoevsky, E. Cioran, L. Shestov and R. F. Aron and others.

The most adequate definition of the problem of the absurd and suicide was certainly offered by Albert Camus:

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.”

However, despite the previous quote from the second section “The Absurd Man” of Camus’ essay “The Myth of Sisyphus: An Essay on the Absurd, Suicide and Freedom”, it should be emphasized that although secondary in relation to the basic premise, the metaphysical, transcendental, religious and faith-related – as the deepest intimacy of the individual – is by no means excluded by this, and that the problem of suicide consequently by no means carries the connotation of sinfulness in its essence. Here there is no place for social constructions of religious dogmas or activist moralizing. Suicide is simply a matter of choice, the final act and decision about whether it makes sense or not to continue living with the real awareness of the meaninglessness of existence as the only real and epistemologically unchangeable set of constellations, i.e. the only indisputable fact! Yes, in the end it is all still a matter of “free will” and the choice of the individual, despite the polysemy and relativity of both of these categories of human existence. Camus, picturesquely in the mentioned work, highlights the initial drive of individuals toward the absurd and consequently toward potential suicide:

“The worm is in man’s heart. That is where it must be sought. One must follow and understand that fatal game that leads from lucidity in the face of existence to flight beyond the light of the mind.”

F. M. Dostoevsky in his fabular, i.e. literary and above all intellectually masterful complexity, develops the problem of suicide, the absurd, as well as the potential sin of suicide, primarily in his novels “The Brothers Karamazov” and “Demons”. Of course, Dostoevsky deals with the problem of suicide through his literary characters, delving into the finesse of their internal psychological habitus, or more concisely – creating psychological characters of his literary works in extremely complex fabular flows of novels and in mutual correlation – the “problematic of suicide”, he processes in almost all his novels and works. His suicidal characters – within his overall creative opus – appear in the following literary figures: Kirillov, Svidrigailov, Stavrogin, Smerdyakov, the Meek One, Borisova, the nameless boy, Olya, Kraft, the deaf-mute girl, the lackey Filip, Matryosha, Starogin, Liza, etc. In addition to the mentioned literary characters, Dostoevsky also deals with the problem of suicide through attempts and thoughts about suicide of his literary heroes (e.g. “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man”), as well as in the “Diary of a Writer”.

The problem of suicide in correlation with the absurd, as well as the potential “sin” of suicide, Dostoevsky develops in his own characteristic way, best through a kind of “monologue” of Alexei Nilych Kirillov during his last encounter with Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, that is, in the part of the novel “Demons”, immediately before Kirillov’s suicide. Kirillov’s suicide essentially represents the best literary and philosophical description of absurd suicide and, at the same time, suicide caused by the realization of the absurd. Dostoevsky perfectly shapes Kirillov – in the literary sense of the mentioned novel – with emphasis and direction toward his final act in the first place, but without at all neglecting his entire literary character within the plot of the novel. Kirillov does not kill himself because of his life path and because he is unhappy, i.e. because of life suffering caused by something concrete, but exclusively because of the awareness of the absurd. At the end of his cognitive path, freed from religiously imposed dogmatic constructions about the “sinfulness of suicide”, Kirillov approaches the final act in some form of “anatomical” and “metaphysical” experiment upon his own soul, i.e. psyche. The character of Kirillov, F. M. Dostoevsky – despite a series of existing shallow literary interpretations and readings – does not present to readers as an essentially mentally ill person, regardless of the eccentricity of his way of life and actions described in the plot of the novel. Engineer Kirillov permanently investigates and searches for the “truth” whether his existence has meaning in the world in which he lives, i.e. which objectively exists as an absolute category. Everything begins from his initial idea which, through induction and deduction, subjectively for him, acquires an absolutely irrefutable range of arguments. At first he announces that he wants to kill himself because it is simply “his idea”, in order to finally, following and obtaining confirmation of the initial premise – decide on a subjective act of revolt – as causality of the absurd. However, that revolt is not of the Camus type in accordance with his “theory of the absurd” and “rebellious man”, but for Kirillov it represents the result of his own lucidity. That is, the “path” that for him leads to general cognition and which is characterized by pronounced analytical, but at the same time certainly – to put it mildly – eccentric spirit. Starting from the assumed initial thesis that life has no meaning, he develops it for years, delving into its finesses, in order to finally arrive at the final conclusion of the original assumption that precedes the realization of the final act. Thus, Kirillov does not fall into overly emphasized affective states, such as “clouding of consciousness” and the like, but his path of cognition is mostly single-line, but also in permanent ascent. As such, it results in the confirmation of his original thesis. In addition, it is logically grounded and above all persistent in its basic sense of the initial premise that life is meaningless. Finally, just before the act of suicide in the last encounter with P. S. Verkhovensky, Kirillov in a specific and theatrical way “culminates” which at the same time acquires practically universal significance interwoven with cosmopolitan dimensions. Accordingly, Kirillov gradually develops and builds from the initial premise about the meaninglessness of life a specific argumentation – even an internal philosophical conception – which confirms his initial hypothesis. It is ultimately deeply ethical, moral and freed from all imposed religious and social postulates. Devoid of constructions and socially dominant dogmas. His suicide is the result of the absurd, where the awareness of meaninglessness appears both at the beginning and at the end, i.e. as the supreme intellectual achievement of his own self-cognition, his only tangible and real truth. Therefore, with him the act of suicide is not pathetic, stemming from tragedies and the dynamics of suffering during his life, but actually represents a sublime act – confirmation of determination, strength and will – and not weakness! In short, with Kirillov, suicide because of the meaninglessness of life represents a rare revolt stemming from his gradual reception, i.e. with the final act Kirillov sublimates absurdity within absurdity as a real fact. The genius of Dostoevsky potentially describes Kirillov as a character of the novel “Demons” as a person for whom there are indications that he is an epileptic, although unlike characters from his other novels and literary works, he does not decisively and concisely emphasize this anywhere. Dostoevsky himself – also an epileptic – indicatively singles out Kirillov in that context from the literary opus of other characters of his works where, if they really have epilepsy, it is clearly emphasized. After all, with Kirillov only certain symptoms characteristic of epilepsy are actually potentially hinted at. For Kirillov, all people and therefore he himself as part of humanity are characterized by baseness. Contemplating within his own built system of philosophical concepts – essentially cosmopolitan – he is also influenced by observation and absorption of the environment, i.e. external events. The complementarity of these premises, the first – his internal (subjective) and the second – external, stemming from the surroundings (argumentatively objective), ultimately lead Kirillov to firm argumentation about the general meaninglessness and thus the absurdity of his further existence. With Kirillov, the “worm of doubt in the heart” as Camus picturesquely called the beginning of the awareness of absurdity, is basically persistent from beginning to end. Certainly, external factors i.e. the environment descriptively expressed through the plot of the novel, nevertheless influence him secondarily and lead him to the final conclusion about meaninglessness and ultimately to suicide. On one hand, after the final subjective realization which for him becomes the absolute and only truth, Kirillov is indifferent and ambivalent toward the final goal which in the fabular flow of the novel Dostoevsky skillfully prolongs, while on the other hand, Kirillov’s spirit is in some form – actually specifically heated and somewhat affective. Although in a specific way Kirillov also goes through the process of realizing the truth about absurdity, his “worm of doubt” is essentially – the initial clear premise that absolutely corresponds to his final argued decision – as a certain type of personal act of rebellion and general reception of universal truth. Exhausting himself with “Sisyphean questions” of the conception of God’s existence, “free will” and faith, Kirillov concludes that there is no God, that there exists man’s free will and that man through suicide becomes God, but at the same time, the night before his final act, he also lights a vigil lamp under the icon! Are these contradictions, antipolarities or are they actually compatible procedures through which Dostoevsky – literarily shaping the fabular flow of this paradox as part of the novel – wants to point to the absurdity of religious and social dogmas about suicide? Kirillov’s path of a certain type of self-realization contains elements of dynamic life phases, alternation of expression and objectification, but in a distinctive way. The tension from the initial premise about meaninglessness with Kirillov certainly gradually grew, often went through contradictions in the complexity of his internal struggle, but is more persistent than with any other literary character. His final realization – after circles of internal evaluation and restlessness – represents in developmental context the confirmation of the truth about the reality of the absurd. Certainly, Dostoevsky presents engineer Kirillov through the complex fabular flow of the novel as a secondary personality who permanently delays the final procedure, but not only because of his subjective aspirations reflected through his tendency to again and again add yet another argument about the world, about the absurd and about the suicide he intends to commit, but that prolongation is conditioned within the overall conception of the novel “Demons”, i.e. corresponds with the flow of the plot itself and the destinies of other characters of the mentioned work. Dostoevsky actually in an excellent and sophisticated way through the character of Kirillov unites contradictions and antitheses, the antipode of objective reasoning about the absurd as the only truth and the personal habitus of Kirillov’s specific ego as a certain type of “reversibility” recidivism. The last mentioned is yet another indication that hypothetically points to Dostoevsky’s own stance on suicide. Nevertheless on the other hand, as is known, Dostoevsky did not kill himself, but he or a part of him, through the character of Kirillov, is more than consistent. That is, despite the fabular prolongation represented in specific forms of verbalization and the tendency for permanent argumentation of his stance on his own suicide, Kirillov ultimately realizes the initial idea which over time he only additionally supported with his personal fund of objective arguments, i.e. he takes his own life with extremely strange procedures in the last half hour before the final act. In that rare description – without parallels in the entire world literature – Dostoevsky surpasses even himself. He crosses the limits of literary and artistic expression, enters into intellectual cynicism and cruelty, at the same time tearing apart every dogmatically constructed social postulate. He annuls the construct of “suicide” as sin. However, Dostoevsky – with his internal struggles related to faith and religion and “free will” – at the same time leaves open questions about the existence of God. Thus Dostoevsky actually reflects his multi-layered contradictions and internal struggle through Kirillov’s thoughts. Those thoughts in a certain sense in Kirillov’s “truth” somewhat coincide with the works, i.e. the opus of F. Nietzsche. Nevertheless, there exists an essential difference in relation to Nietzsche’s perceptions of the “Übermensch” stemming from atheistic positions and the complexity of the internal intellectual substratum of Kirillov and secondarily also of Dostoevsky! Kirillov kills himself because he seemingly comes to the conclusion that God does not exist – which for him is a sufficient reason for suicide – although at the same time he considers that the existence of God is necessary. After all, the already mentioned procedure with the vigil lamp, before the final act, through the character of Kirillov Dostoevsky leaves this question open and contradictory in layered dichotomy and in the very crucial core. Nevertheless, Kirillov’s suicide for him as a character of the novel represents the final exit stemming from his own revolt constructed in the postulates of his personal logic. His conclusion is “that Christ died in vain”, i.e. “that after death he did not find himself in paradise” and that “his torment in bodily form was in vain”, lead Kirillov to the final act. Jesus is according to Kirillov’s words, “a victim of physical laws, who lives amid lies and vainly innocently dies because of lies”. In that context, Jesus – for Kirillov – represents the greatest tormented victim of deception crucified on the cross as the most sublime perfection (being) that has ever existed and that will ever exist. Such conclusions Kirillov, with a series of oscillations and contradictions during the plot of the novel, expresses through explanations of the difference between the terminological designations God-man and man-God, thereby indirectly refusing to compare himself with Him, aware that he is unworthy of comparison with Christ and that he is a “base person” like every other human being. The suicidal Kirillov therefore represents the victim of humanity as a whole, i.e. of Dostoevsky’s perception of the absurd. Kirillov’s final act is absurd because of the realization of the absolute of the absurd, i.e. absurdity in all its purity and tangibility as the only real category of existence. Finally, we can pose the question whether through the character of Kirillov Dostoevsky actually performs a specific type of his own literary suicide and whether at the same time and compatibly with him his personal Gnostic thoughts, i.e. personal form of Gnosticism are hinted at?

Dostoevsky approaches the problem of suicide in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” within the following quoted thought:

“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for. Without a firm belief in the meaning of life, man would not consent to go on living and would rather destroy himself than remain on earth.”

This thought of Dostoevsky is quite similar to Camus’ positions. Paradoxically, in the whole series of literary and “philosophical” interpretations – both of Dostoevsky’s work (primarily) and of Camus’ “Essay on the Absurd” – most authors try to present that both authors actually discouraged suicide in their works! Such unfounded interpretations stem from the personal habitus and the tendency toward some form of deviant preventive activism of the so-called interpreters. In the same way, as an antithesis and diametrical opposite to the previous, there are also authors – albeit rare – who, through the prism of their own nihilism while interpreting Dostoevsky and Camus, actually tendentiously and superficially try to present that both writers actually encouraged suicide.

A. Camus, in accordance with his conception of the perception of the absurd, i.e. “rebellion” as a solution in his revolt – personally decisively rejects suicide as an answer to the reality of the absurd – but in that rejection of suicide, he concisely writes from his own individual position, to which we will return later in the text!

With Dostoevsky, this question is however more complex and often contradictory. In the form of one of his writings, it is even somewhat indicative if the writing, i.e. the quoted thought, is viewed independently, i.e. outside his entire creative opus:

“Suicide, in the absence of the idea of immortality, is an absolute and inevitable necessity for every man who has risen at least somewhat in his development above the animal.”

However, this is only one of the thoughts stemming from the internal intellectual permanent “struggles” of this extraordinary thinker and writer, i.e. only one of the reflections of his “Sisyphean search” for answers: a specific kind of “cry” and “scream” of despair, probably affectively stemming from his internal turmoil. In that sense, the quoted thought actually represents only one of his contradictions and by no means his definitive postulate! Moreover, in the thought itself, open ontological and religious, i.e. faith-related questions are noticeable. That is, the theme of Dostoevsky’s perception of “immortality” is once again reflected, which for the writer represents an additional unfathomable problem that branches into a whole series of additional contradictions interwoven with eternal questions, without an adequate answer!

Generally speaking, the deep thought of Dostoevsky, translated into the plot of his novels and primarily into the descriptive psychological framework of his literary characters, essentially sublimates the very intellectual internal struggle of the great thinker and writer. The permanent turmoil of thoughts and ideas in an attempt of Sisyphean character to cognize that which is impossible to cognize: the general meaning in universal nothingness and the essence of penetrating the understanding of faith and God, is practically reflected in all the basic postulates of his novels. The manifestation of epochal artistic expression through the literary form of the novel, Dostoevsky’s internal struggle is freed from the dialectics of philosophy, but not from the essential questions of existential philosophy. In that sense, György Lukács’ statement in his “Theory of the Novel” according to which “Dostoevsky did not write novels at all” seems a fairly well-founded thesis. Dostoevsky’s work basically represents the literary expression of a specific builder and destroyer in the context of his observation of human consciousness and soul (psyche), which permanently disturbs readers and brings them to the limits of perception of crucial questions that tear apart the writer and thinker himself. That is, through masterful literary expression, Dostoevsky in a subtle and receptive form, but sharply, transmits his internal restlessness to collective individuals who are able to accept it in various subjective ways, whereby the essential substratum of open imposed questions represents the common referential premise. Here we notice certain parallels with the works of F. Kafka, i.e. specifically with Theodor Adorno’s statement that every sentence Kafka wrote essentially requires the reader to additionally interpret it. It seems that for Dostoevsky, certainly in a different form, but certainly even more complex – in the symbolic sense of a labyrinth observed not as an exit, but as a place of execution – the same can be stated.

Perhaps the best thought about the assessment of Dostoevsky’s works that relate to the meaninglessness of existence and the psychological characters of the personalities of his novels in all their complexity was actually expressed by Lev Shestov:

“If Darwin had seen in life what Dostoevsky saw, he would not have spoken of the law of self-preservation, but of the law of self-destruction.”

Given that we have superficially touched upon Shestov, it should certainly be done with caution in the context of his understanding of suicide, to highlight his thought:

“To a man who knows everything, nothing remains but to shoot himself through the head.”

This note, although sharply expressed, is certainly again not so simple, i.e. does not represent some form of literary absurdist or even nihilistic cliché, if one takes into account the conception of the complexity of Shestov’s work “The Apotheosis of Groundlessness” / “All Things Are Possible” (in some translations known under the title “Soul and Existence”). After all, Shestov’s conditional antiphilosophy freed from questions of rationalism and scientism, i.e. emphasizing the limitations of metaphysics in accordance with the period when Shestov created from a concrete religious and thus existentialist habitus, is too complex to be viewed only from the above-quoted thought.

The question of existence through the prism of the absurd as the only real tangible category, i.e. as the essential conflict between man’s longing for meaning and the universe which is indifferent to that longing, is certainly more clearly expressed for Camus through his peculiar “rebellion” which is practically read in his entire creative opus. He personally, without entering into the right of choice of others, rejects suicide as a solution, which he formulates through the following:

“From the absurd I draw three consequences: my revolt, my freedom, and my passion. By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation to death – and I refuse suicide.”

That is, Camus practically completely freed from questions of faith and the meaning of life (compared to Dostoevsky), proposes that the absurd be accepted, i.e. that life be lived without illusions about a deeper, metaphysical meaning, but with complete awareness of the absurd. In that acceptance of the absurd, man finds true freedom which for Camus is not in escape from the absurd through suicide, but in confronting it and rebellious determination to continue with life despite meaninglessness! In short, Camus emphasizes rebellion against the absurd as the greatest expression of human freedom. According to him, stripped of all illusions of the meaning of life, at the moment when man recognizes and accepts the absurd, he becomes free to create his own meaning within that paradox. Thus for him, the absurd becomes a source of strength, because freedom stems from the ability to choose life and active action, without the need for transcendent and final answers.

With Dostoevsky, the question of suicide, the absurd and existence essentially remains open until the end precisely because of the impossibility of resolving the perception of “free will” viewed through the Christian tradition and much deeper, through faith in God. This difference between the thoughts of Camus and Dostoevsky certainly stems from their personal habitus, but is also absolutely conditioned by the different chronological, spatial and social contexts in which both authors created. Certainly, apart from the mentioned, the fact is that among others, besides Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, the works of Dostoevsky had the greatest influence on Camus’ work. Finally, it should be emphasized that neither Camus nor Dostoevsky absolutely anywhere actually question the right of choice for suicide, i.e. in short, neither encourage it nor condemn it, although factually neither author approaches it himself. Any other interpretation, apart from the stated, is superfluous.

The same approach is taken by Emil Cioran, in his extremely radical views on nothingness and the meaninglessness of everything. However, unlike Camus and Dostoevsky, Cioran condemns himself for not being able to decide on the final goal, which he sees as the ultimate outcome. Moreover, his position on this issue is even more radical, often at moments seemingly contradictory and certainly refers to nothingness and suicide far above the individual, but is directed toward the meaninglessness of the existence of humanity in general – and in that sense – toward the inevitability and necessity of its extinction as the only way out of meaninglessness. Although seemingly atheistic, his views essentially at moments reflect his subjective perception of Gnosticism as a completely legitimate position. His works are permeated with pronounced, but real pessimism, where the absurd, alongside idleness, futility, decay, tyranny and vulgarity of historical flows, occupies the central position. However, Cioran sobers even more – albeit in vain – pointing to the agony of consciousness, whereby thinking (reason) he presents as a disease. Suicide as a theme extends practically in every his work, sarcastically, pessimistically. Thus, for example, in “A Short History of Decay” / “Syllogisms of Bitterness” he emphasizes:

“I live only because it is in my power to die whenever I choose; without the idea of suicide, I would have killed myself long ago.”

In the work “The Trouble With Being Born”, E. M. Cioran, taking the entire range of constellations as well-founded arguments about the reality of meaninglessness, in his own characteristic way records probably the strongest thought. A sentence that at first glance exudes bitterness and from the perspective of observation of imposed social constructs even seems insane, but which contrary to that represents a kind of essence of reality:

“If, at the moment of birth, our consciousness were equal to that at the end of adolescence, it is more than likely that suicide in the fifth year of life would be a common occurrence, or even a matter of honor.”

Certainly, although the quoted thought for many seems unjustifiably blasphemous and heretical, on the other hand it can be argumentatively defined in short simply as “Cioranian”. It encompasses his specific nihilism, absurdism and certainly unquestionable antinatalism. However, in it is backgroundly expressed the essential substance of the perception of “freedom of choice” in the broadest sense of meaning and its interpretative forms. However, the core is that that “freedom” is limited by the period of growing up, i.e. maturation and self-realization or more precisely – the individual’s realization of the reality of absurdity. In that sense, that “freedom” is limited from the start, i.e. it comes too late. Consequently, it simultaneously encourages, but at the same time opposes the potential suicide of the individual. Simply, at the moment when reality is realized, everything is already too late for any meaningful action. Only eventual ontological and metaphysical premises in the reality of the absurd remain. Thus, suicide in that context, as well as the continuation of the life path, is simply meaningless and specifically with Cioran additionally permeated with justified bitterness because of the realization of that key fact.

Having entered these digressions related to the problem of suicide in the reality of general meaninglessness of existence in the context of the works of the mentioned authors, as a specific type of essay, in the end it should nevertheless be particularly emphasized that the question – I underline question and not statement – posed by Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron, seems the most meaningful, freed from social constructs and traditions of religious and social dogmas:

“To kill oneself, does that mean to capitulate before some temptation or to gain supreme power, power of man over his own life?”

Thus, the question of the suicide of the individual represents an act of liberation from the reality of nothingness and meaninglessness of existence, under the condition that by it the individual does not harm his loved ones. Even the conception of “free will”, if it exists at all in all its limits, morally justifies it, i.e. every value judgment about suicide represents nothing but a social construct and as such has no essential moral constant and grounding even in terms of faith and religion! Suicide is the right of choice of every individual that stems from his spiritual, existential and psychological habitus – regardless of whether it is observed from the position of an atheist, agnostic, monotheist, etc. In that sense, the act of suicide is ultimately a matter of the freedom of every individual and in the basic, factual and value attribution, does not contain any real value component. After all, the existence of the individual is transient and therefore does not deserve special attention. It is globally viewed, essentially unimportant. After all, unimportant as the life of the individual itself, except for his loved ones, to whom his potential death – as a consequence of suicide, accident or illness – causes absolute pain and essentially only suffering!

IV

 

Absurd – as a logical and existential category – when viewed in the context of everyday life, represents an insurmountable obstacle, i.e. the very essence of life! To live means to participate in the absurd and to experience it. The absurd does not represent an abstraction, but the only real and tangible category. Consequently: it is meaningless to think about the absurd, since it is more than sensorially tangible! Thus, the fear of one’s own death represents selfish cowardice, a rural perception and an exceptional intellectual limitation of the concrete individual. It is clear that no one wants a difficult death from which one rightly fears, and that a psychologically healthy individual – consciously or unconsciously – actually desires a painless death, without physical and psychic decay.

Accepting the absurdity of existence, painless death is the greatest blessing and hypothetically: a gift from God (the Absolute), which does not even have to be perceived as “creator” i.e. “demiurge”. On the contrary, the fear of the death of a loved one represents a justified horror and fear of one’s own soul pain and excessive suffering, which certainly is a form of selfishness of the individual. But that “selfishness” on the other hand, naturally and only correctly, stems from the individual’s desire for his loved one to be well, i.e. colloquially speaking represents “care for the loved one”. Although this is uncompromisingly normal and the only correct reasoning, unfortunately it to a certain extent – consciously or not – stems from narrowly selfish motives and the individual’s fear of suffering because of the loss of his loved one. Thus, the horror of existence should not represent the fear of one’s own death, but the fear of life and soul suffering in the case of losing a loved one, or of one’s own death preceded by soul and physical pain, the process of psychic rotting and physical decay. That is essentially the fear of the uncertainty of the extent of suffering and pain in the everydayness of the life path in its entire real meaninglessness.

 

V

 

The self-deception of the individual about the meaning of the life of the individual as a biological unit represents a kind of utopia, psychic self-defense and illusory appearance of the reality of the meaning of life from which consequently arises the intensification of the intensity of suffering. In the final instance, the awareness of the individual ultimately again results in the final conclusion about the absurd as the only tangible, real, i.e. sensory constellation. The question of birth and death is essentially not complex. It is actually strikingly banal and visible, in short meaningless and thereby at the same time compatible with the only well-founded fact about the absurdity of existence.

If one excludes the two religious, i.e. faith-related categories about the pre-existence of the soul before birth, i.e. the eternity of the soul after biological death, or on the other hand belief in reincarnation, only the question of immortality in physical form remains. Yet here arises the crucial question – why would an individual strive for physical immortality? Why would someone aspire to this pathological goal that simply makes no sense!? Can a psychologically relatively healthy and aware individual (who relatively controls his own ego) really construct his own desire to achieve immortality – that disgusting deviant perspective devoid of meaning – which implies eternity of existence in the hell of existence! On the contrary, the question and statement arises of the only really justified fear of potential reincarnation, defined in the broadest set of interpretative forms and religious variables. That fear of the eternal circle of repetition of the meaninglessness of existing in hell or “limbo” as a cyclical process, a closed circle of eternal suffering, without the possibility of exclusion. Because exclusion (conditionally nirvana understood in a specific and unconventional way), if it exists at all – in statistical sense – represents an incidental state that the individual is quite certainly not able to reach through his biological existence or existences, practically never. Fear – if reincarnation really exists – thereby acquires a hyperbolic dimension. It grows into despair of incessant repetition, of incessant closed circles of suffering, of cyclical eons of hell. The very thought of the hypothesis of reincarnation, of eternal repetition, is of Sisyphean substance, and therefore represents an abyss within the abyss of the existence of the individual’s life path. A chasm and infinite abyss of the absurd that awakens dread of permanent repetition of despair, fear of rebirth! On the other hand, following certain postulates of faith, religious teachings and myths, the question arises about the meaning of belief in the eternity of the soul. But again, why would anyone rejoice in the eternity of the soul, its pre-existence and/or existence – bodiless immortality – if the concept of the soul is actually not interpreted as simple exclusion of consciousness of everything! As a blissful state of complete absence of thought in eternal death, in eternal peace, freed from everything!

VI

 

Except for the awareness of meaninglessness, everything else – except for the limited perception of previous knowledge of the biological elements of corporeality and psyche (soul?), as well as the limitation of physical constellations in relation to the world and cosmos – represents a relative category. Transience is unquestionable, since death as the final act is the only factual premise, regardless of hypotheses about eternity or reincarnation, pre-existence, eternity of the soul, etc. Certainly, despite everything stated, for a believing individual – regardless of her reflection of faith or religiosity – the absurdity of life coexists in correlation with the creator (demiurge?) and/or God (the Absolute), although the form of that connection is absolutely unknown and every interpretation is only – at best – of hypothetical nature. For atheists (the true ones, extremely few in number), the absurd should be the absolute! In the end – the absurd – unlike thinking about God and/or the creator (demiurge?), represents the only true and tangible fact of existence.

 

VII

 

I actually know very little. I know that I am surrounded by matter and the physical world with dynamic social processes; I know that I exist in physical form within the reality of the meaninglessness of general human existence and within the construct of time and space as physically real – although not even remotely comprehensible, i.e. conditionally illusory categories in a deeper sense. I know that the only real tangible category is the absurd. I know that I feel and that the general realization of meaninglessness is “too heavy” for me being aware of it and that unlike the large number of “lucky ones” who had the “blessing” to be freed from the real realization of meaninglessness and from the walls of knowledge that surround us – about the place of execution, i.e. the closed “labyrinth” without exit and the possibility of reaching answers – sometimes I wish, instead of writing this, to be in the blessing of complete ignorance, absolute limitation of the mind in the illusory bubble of self-deception – perceptually rural – freed from realization and in self-deception that something, anything, really has meaning.

Everything except the previously stated is only a hypothesis, i.e. my “knowledge” described in the previous few lines ends there. The rest is only general information, some kind of critically built opinion, subjective inclination toward analysis, receptivity and a certain kind of taste for the consumption – according to my opinion – of certain quality contents of human creation, but all in wandering through the eternal place of execution of general (non)knowledge in the “epic” of my subjective absence of meaning of myself – as nevertheless an individual category characteristic of my character as a biological unit – but on the other hand, nevertheless with the objective awareness of the meaninglessness of everything that exists as the only real fact!

Petrovaradin, 25.5.2025. / Published: 2.6.2025.

Impossibility of Solution (3.2.2020.)

Author of the text: Kristijan Obšust ABSURD REFLECTIONS: SUBJECTIVE NOTES © – LEGACY OF THE OBŠUST FAMILY – All rights reserved

NOTES:

• For publication on this site, the text is equipped with photographs and video content by the editorial staff of “P.U.L.S.E”.

• LEGACY OF THE OBŠUST FAMILY: The Legacy of Marija, Vladimir and Kristijan Obšust, founded on 9.4.2025 and operates within the Association for Culture, Art and International Cooperation “Adligat” (Belgrade, Republic of Serbia).

  Birth, death, Kristijan Obšust, Legacy of the Obšust family, life, Pulse, Suicide