Sisyphus and the Rolling Stone (1)

“a philosopher can only gain respect if he teaches by example, we hang on to his reply”

preferring, for my morning humor, to mentally omit the “to” and take the last clause literally.

I wonder, though, if suicide IS a social phenomenon. Is it simply a topic always hushed up, or is it something we see more commonly today than we did in ancient times? Wish I could recall what the Greeks said on the subject, but the pace of work is intense on the farm right now, so I’m not apt to look it up. I agree with you that the decision is made in solitude – what I wonder is about the loss of community that has created so much solitude in the last 100 years or more. In short, I’m not certain one can ignore it as a social phenomenon.

What I’m most confused about in your argument, however, is that you seem to say that it is a conclusion arrived at by thought “What we shall discuss here, on the other hand, is the relationship between suicide and individual thought. ” then go on to say…It’s rarely the result of conscious reflection, though that can’t be ruled out.” and conclude that the final act is “instinctive.”

Why/how do you get to the idea that it’s instinctive, rather than a case of intellectual water torture, the constant ‘drip drip drip’ of mental irritation continuing until finally one can take no more?

In the case sited, the property owner changed by his daughter’s death seems easy for me to imagine…. after catastrophic loss one waits and waits for the pain to subside, waits for life to take up the reins again and to be able to move on…. and then finally, little by little the recognition comes that the pain will never end, that nothing will be the same, that the death was irrevocable not only for the daughter, but for the part of his life that depended on her existence for his happiness.

For myself, I remember often playing those waiting games, wondering when it would stop hurting to remember.

Our society expects us to thoroughly “bury” people in a couple of weeks, but even a year is not always enough. For me, it took nearly ten before I was effectively able to bury my losses.

As the book progresses, he clarifies where reason and instinct diverge, in fact this is the very nub of the Absurd. I’ve been continuing the translation today, about 5000 word further on, and he says:

“I said that the world is absurd, but I went too fast. The world itself isn’t reasonable, that’s all one can say about it. What’s actually absurd is the conflict between this unreason and this hopeless desire for clarity which so profoundly resonates in man.”

After that he looks at various philosophers, particularly the Existentialists, from Kierkegaard onwards, to see how they prefigure and inspire his own ideas of the Absurd.

Camus is assuming a normative world where everyone has the same serious philosophical problem. I don’t see the warrant for that conclusion.

In my case the only interesting question is whether or not I am enjoying myself enough. What keeps me alive at times, is that I also enjoy considering why I am not, when I am not. But that’s just me, as far as I know.

And you may find his attitude interesting to compare with that of Ernest Becker, about whom I wrote whilst thinking of you on your peace pilgrimage to Jerusalem (if I may characterise it thus!)

And in your absence I also wrote a little about Chuang Tzu.

I love the refinement of the ‘absurd’ as a dicotomy between the unreasonableness of life, and our own drive for clarity. I recall now someone once argued w/ my existential despair by saying that ‘Life doesn’t have meaning, it simply ‘IS.’ It’s up to you what you make of it.” It didn’t ease my anguish, but it the idea took hold, as is evidenced by the fact that I’ve remembered it for so long.

Your summary “Life doesn’t have meaning, it simply ‘IS.’ It’s up to you what you make of it” might be a simple summary of Camus’ book too, not that he would have approved anything so simple.

I find that it is useful for me to entertain the notion of absurdity as being possibly the authentic summary of the human situation. But I find it absurd to prescribe this position to others.

Wiki quotes Camus as saying, “From the moment absurdity is recognized, it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.”

It also seems to produce a non-absolute form of spiritual “deliverance.” The freedom to feel as good or as terrible as one likes.

If all is illusion, (“a chase after the wind” Ecclesiastes 1:14) it may still be the case that uncertainty provides the most effective (enjoyable) illusion.

It’s a certain way to make your wish to come true, if your wish is not to be here on earth.

But there is the uncertainty as to what happens a few moments after your last breath.

That sounds all rather intellectual and abstract. In my experience (not huge, but actual) of suicide and suicide attempts, it is anything but intellectual, and is preceded by an immense emotional struggle, not least with one’s own body, which has its own views on the matter and will go to unbelievable lengths to keep right on breathing.

“Chewed up by his thoughts” sound pretty accurate to me.

As for the accuracy of “chewed up by his thoughts”, that was one of my boldest attempts at translation. But you can judge for yourself. Here is Camus’ original:

D’un gérant d’immeubles qui s’était tué, on me disait un jour qu’il avait perdu sa fille depuis cinq ans, qu’il avait beaucoup changé depuis et que cette histoire “l’avait miné”. On ne peut souhaiter de mot plus exact. Commencer à penser, c’est commencé d’être miné.

The official and only existing English translation, by Justin O’Brien, is literal:

Of an apartment- building manager who had killed himself I was told that he had lost his daughter five years before, that he had changed greatly since and that that experience had ‘undermined’ him. A more exact word cannot be imagined. Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.

French can be dry and conceptual. I felt the translator needs to do more. Pictorially, to “undermine” is to eat up the ground beneath your feet. My strategy throughout is to reconstruct what Camus might have written if he were English:

Someone told me about a property manager who killed himself. Five years before, he had lost his daughter. From then on, he became a changed man. It was eating him all that time: yes, the expression could not be more precise. What starts with a man thinking, ends with a man chewed up by his thoughts.

I think ‘chewed up by his thoughts’ is powerfully emotionally telling, although there is still something to be said for ‘undermined’, as, at least in English, it carries the connotation of betrayal, which is apposite in the circumstances – betrayed by your own thoughts. I don’t know if carries the same connotation in French.

But there is more to be said about animal suicide, I think. I shall put this down in a new post.